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http://www.archive.org/details/celestialconfereOOpeasrich 


Celestial  Conferences 
on  Love 


By  ELSIE  PEASE 


DISCUSSION  BASED  ON  THE  LAWS  OF 
NATURE  SEEKING  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF 
LOVE  AND  MARRIAGE  THAT  WILL 
IMPROVE  THE  SOCIAL  AND  SPIRITUAL 
LIFE  OF  MANKIND 

A  BOOK  FOR  SUPERMEN  AND  WOMEN 


■*— r 


THfi    SflAKERPEARE    PEBSS 

114-116  E.  28tb  St. 

New    York 

1914 


< 


"For  if  an  author  does  not  penetrate  to  the  essential 
in  the  human  soul  to  its  deepest  depth;  if  he  has  not 
dared,  or  has  not  been  able  to  write  his  book  regardless 
of  consequences ;  if  he  has  not  ventured  to  represent  his 
ideas  in  statuesque  nakedness;  has  not  imaged  human 
nature  as  it  showed  itself  to  him,  improving  nothing,  but 
has  taken  counsel  with  his  public,  been  guided  by  its 
prejudices,  its  ignorance,  its  untruthfulness,  its  vulgar 
or  sentimental  taste — he  may  have  been  highly  distin- 
guished  by  his  contemporaries:  for  me  he  does  not 
exist,  to  what  I  call  literature  his  work  is  valueless.  All 
the  offspring  of  the  authors  MARRIAGE  DE  CON- 
VENIENCE  with  that  doubtful  character  Public 
Opinion;  all  those  literary  children  which  their  author 
begets,  giving  a  side  thought  to  the  taste  and  morality  of 
his  public,  are  defunct  a  generation  later.  There  was 
no  real  life  in  them.  But  every  work  in  which  an  inde- 
pendent writer  has,  without  any  side  thought,  uttered 
what  he  felt,  and  described  what  he  saw,  is,  and  will 
continue  to  be,  no  matter  how  few  editions  of  it  may  be 
printed,  a  valuable  document." — Brandes'  "Main  Current 
In  Literature," 


'('■ 


by  Shakespeare  Press. 


The  Conflict  of  Love 
and  Duty. 


PLATO, 


BEATRICE, 


CONFEREES. 

SPIRITS 
EMERSON, 
HUMANS 

REPORTER 
ELSIE  PEASE. 


AMIEL. 


LYCIDAS. 


301910 


P  from  earth's  center  through  the  Seventh 

Gate 
I  rose,  and  on  the  Throne  of  Saturn  sate, 
And  many  Knots  unraveled  by  the  Road; 
But  not  the  Knot  of  Human  Death  and  Fate. 


There  was  a  Door  to  which  I  found  no  Key; 
There  was  a  Veil  past  which  I  could  not  see; 
Some  little  Talk  awhile  of  Me  and  Thee 
There  seem'd — and  then   no  more  of  Thee 
and  Me. 


Then  to  the  rolling  Heaven  itself  I  cried, 
Asking,  "What  Lamp  had  Destiny  to  guide 
"Her  little  Children  stumbling  in  the  Dark?" 
And — "A     blind     Understanding!"       Heav'n 
replied. 


Then  to  this  earthen  Bowl  did  I  adjourn 
My  Lip  the  Secret  Well  of  Life  to  learn; 
And  Lip  to  Lip  it  murmur' d — "While  you  live 
"Drink I — for    once    dead    you    never    shall 
return." 


Oh,   Thou   who   man   of  baser   Earth   didst 

make. 
And  who  with  Eden  didst  devise  the  snake; 
For  all  the  Sin  wherewith  the  Face  of  Man 
Is    blacken'd,    Man's    forgiveness    give — and 

take  I 

— Omar  Khayyam. 


Scene.  In  the  large  living  room  of  the  artistic 
little  bungalow  that  Lycidas  has  pro- 
vided for  his  bride.  Time,  a  couple  of  months 
later,  the  honeymoon  past,  Lycidas  and  Beatrice 
are  prepared  as  well  settled  married  people  to 
discuss  the  more  intimate  questions  of  love.  The 
conference  this  evening  represents  the  storm  and 
stress  period  in  the  love-life,— the  period  of  dark- 
ness, doubt  and  wandering. 


CELESTIAL  CONFERENCES  ON  LOVE. 
The  Conflict  of  Love  and  Duty. 


Beatrice. 

AIL  forth  into  the  sea  of  life, 

O  gentle,  loving,  trusting  wife,  » 

And  safe  from  all  adversity 

Upon  the  bosom  of  that  sea 

Thy  comings  and  goings  bel 

For  gentleness  and  love  and  trust 

Prevail  over  angry  waves  and  gust; 

And  in  the  wreck  of  noble  lives  , 

Something  immortal  still  survives. 

AmieL  I  am  inclined  to  Eelieve  that  for  woman 
love  is  the  supreme  authority, — that 
which  judges  the  rest  and  decides  what  is  good 
and  evil, — for  a  man  love  is  subordinate  to  right. 
It  is  a  great  passion  but  it  is  not  a  source  of  order, 


Celestial   Conferences   on  Love  y 

the  synonym  of  reason,  the  criterion  of  excel- 
lence. It  would  seem  then  the  woman  places  her 
ideal  in  the  perfection  of  justice.  It  was  in  this 
sense  that  St.  Paul  was  able  to  say  'The  woman 
is  the  glory  of  man,  and  man  the  glory  of  God." 
Thus  the  woman  who  absorbs  herself  in  the 
object  of  her  affection  is,  so  to  speak,  in  the  line 
of  nature;  she  is  truly  woman,  she  realizes  her 
fundamental  type.  On  the  contrary  a  man  who 
should  make  his  life  to  consist  of'conjugal  adora- 
tion, and  should  imagine  he  had  lived  sufficiently 
when  he  had  made  himself  a  priest  of  a  beloved 
woman,  such  an  one  is  but  half  a  man;  he  is 
despised  by  the  world,  and  perhaps  secretly  dis- 
dained by  the  women  themselves.  The  woman 
who  loves  truly  seeks  to  merge  her  individuality 
into  that  of  the  man  she  loves.  She  desires  that 
her  love  should  make  him  greater  and  stronger, 
more  masculine,  more  active.  Thus  each  sex 
plays  the  appointed  part,  the  woman  is  first  des- 
tined for  the  man,  and  man  destined  for  society. 
Woman's  duty  is  love,  man's  love  is  duty.  In 
other  words,  the  guiding  star  of  woman  is  love, 
while  the  twin  star  of  love  and  duty  ever  rises 
towards  the  zenith  of  man's  heaven.  Woman 
owes  herself  to  one,  man  owes  himself  to  all,  and 
each  obtains  peace  and  happiness  only  when  he 
or  she  has  recognized  this  law  and  accepted  this 


8  Celestial   Conferences  on  Love 

balance  of  things.  The  same  thing  may  be  good 
in  woman  and  evil  in  man,  may  be  strength  in 
her,  weakness  in  him. 

Beatrice.  It  is  wise  that  man's  heart  can  turn 
more  easily  from  love  to  other  things 
as  weighty  and  serious.  How  else  could  the  state 
be  maintained  and  governed,  battles  fought  and 
won,  and  souls  saved  ?  Woman's  greatest  happi- 
ness comes  when  her  love  and  duty  are  one,  her 
greatest  battle  when  they  are  in  opposition.  Let 
me  illustrate  this  conflict  of  love  and  duty  by 
relating  a  vision  or  a  dream  which  I  recently 
experienced,  although  perhaps  it  is  no  more  than 
the  Story  of  Eden  retold. 


Emerson. 


Eden  with  its  angels  bold, 

Love  and  flowers  and  coolest  sea, 
Is  less  an  ancient  story  told 

Than  a  glowing  prophecy. 

In  the  spirits  perfect  air, 

In  the  passions  tame  and  kind, 

Innocence  from  selfish  care. 
The  real  Eden  we  shall  find. 

When  the  soul  to  sin  hath  died. 
True  and  beautiful  and  sound. 

Then  all  earth  is  sanctified. 
Up  springs  Paradise  around. 


The  New  Eden 

Beatrice  Relates  Her  Vision  of  the  Conflict  of 
Love  and  Duty. 

^iN  the  long  ago,  in  the  midst  of  a  great  desert, 
M  there  was  a  beautiful  garden,  called  the 
''Garden  of  Pleasure,"  within  which  was  a 
golden  stairway,  leading,  it  was  said,  to  the  in- 
visible throne  of  The  Great  King.  An  ancient 
servitor  named  Duty  had  charge  of  this  garden, 
and  very  aged  was  he,  for  he  was  born  when  the 
foundations  of  the  universe  were  laid.  Most  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  garden  were  born  there, 
some  few  had  made  the  journey  across  the  great 
desert.  Among  the  household  of  Duty  was  a 
beautiful  maiden  named  Brighteyes,  for 

Whatever  her  eyes  are  turned  upon 
Spirits  of  love  do  issue  in  flame, 
And  in  her  smile  love's  image  you  may  see, 
Whence  none  can  gaze  upon  her  steadfastly. 

Living  in  an  atmosphere  of  love  within  and 
without,  Brighteyes  could  hardly  be  said  to  know 
what  love  really  was,  other  than  her  pleasure  in 

9 


10  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

the  flowers  of  the  garden,  which  she  attended  and 
gathered  to  adorn  her  beautiful  golden  hair.  She 
was  but  a  lovely  and  gentle  animal  whose  soul 
had  not  yet  been  awakened.  Yet  during  all  these 
years  it  seemed  no  prohibition  that  Duty  would 
not  permit  her  to  pick  the  pansies  of  blue  and 
gold,  which  were  partitioned  off  from  the  rest. 
But  many  a  time  as  she  gazed  on  them  she 
wondered 

Why  pansies'  eyes  that  laugh 

Bear  beauty's  prize 

From  violets'   eyes  that  dream. 

Perfect  obedience  comes  to  the  free-will  being 
only  through  perfect  wisdom  or  through  perfect 
innocence  and  ignorance.  Innocent  as  Bright- 
eyes  was,  there  was  woven  in  the  texture  of  her 
pure  nature  the  golden  threads  of  love.  Now  as 
Plato  has  said,  Love, — the  weaver,  is  an  aspirer 
after  wisdom,  and  along  this  road  lies  the  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that 
when  a  shepherd  lad  travelling  with  his  flock 
from  oasis  to  oasis,  paused  upon  the  garden  walls, 
the  maiden  talked  with  him,  and  the  truth  and 
love  from  her  eyes  were  reflected  back  from  his. 
She  told  him  about  the  forbidden  pansies  of  blue 
and  gold,  and  he  told  her  they  were  more  precious 
than  all  the  rest  of  the  flowers,  and  that  they  gave 
the  possessor  power  to  command  the  earth  to 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  li 

open  and  pour  forth  its  treasures  of  silver  and 
gold  and  precious  stones.  He  also  told  her  if  she 
would  gain  one  of  these  they  might  go  forth  into 
the  great  world  beyond,  and  live  in  a  beautiful 
palace  more  beautiful  than  the  invisible  throne 
before  which  she  worshipped,  and  that  instead  of 
being  the  handmaiden  of  the  stern  and  ugly  old 
gardener  Duty,  she  might  be  a  Queen  over  many. 
So  the  ignorant  one  resolved  to  leave  the  garden, 
and  as  in  the  grey  twilight  she  wandered  among 
the  beds,  and  gathered  her  hands  full  of  flowers, 
their  rich,  sweet  scents  never  seemed  so  sweet 
before,  now  that  she  was  about  to  leave  them^ 
Then  Duty  with  his  clear  white  features  came 
and  looked  at  her.  She  ceased  from  her  gather- 
ing, but  walked  among  the  flowers  smiling  with 
her  hands  full.  Then  Duty  with  his  still  white 
face  came  and  looked  at  her  again,  but  she  turned 
her  head  away.  At  last  she  saw  his  face  and 
dropped  the  fairest  flowers  and  walked  silently 
away.  Then  he  came  to  her,  and  she  bent  her 
head  low,  and  turned  towards  the  gate.  But  as 
she  went  out  she  looked  at  the  last  flickering  rays 
of  the  sunlight  on  the  faces  of  the  flowers,  and 
wept  in  anguish.  The  gate  closed  with  solemn 
clang.  But  still  she  held  in  her  hands  the  buds 
she  had  gathered,  and  their  sweet  scent  was  very 
grateful  to  her  in  the  desert.    But  Duty  still  fol- 


12  Celestial  Conferences   on  Love 

lowed  her.  Once  more  he  stood  before  her  with 
his  white  deathlike  face,  and  she  knew  what  he 
had  come  for.  She  unclasped  her  fingers  and  let 
the  flowers  drop  out — flowers  she  had  loved  so 
well,  and  walked  on  with  dry,  aching  eyes.  Then 
for  the  last  time  he  came,  and  she  showed  her 
empty  hands, — the  hands  that  had  nothing  now. 
But  still  he  looked.  Then  at  length  she  opened 
the  bosom  of  her  dress,  and  took  out  the  pansies 
of  blue  and  gold  which  she  had  hidden  there,  and 
laid  them  on  the  sand.  The  shepherd  lad,  angry 
at  such  easy  obedience,  turned  his  back  upon 
her.  She  had  nothing  more  to  give  now,  love 
and  flowers  all,  had  been  given,  and  so  she  wan- 
dered out  into  the  night  and  the  desert  alone, 
disappearing  in  the  whirling  grey  sand. 

She  wandered  on  with  nothing  but  darkness 
and  death  before  her,  hoping  to  find  a  Garden  of 
Pleasure  where  she  could  pluck  flowers  as  she 
willed,  and  where  there  was  real  love.  And  day 
after  day  as  she  wandered  she  sang  this  song: 

THE  WANDERER'S  SONG. 

1  wander  here,  I  wander  there, 

Through  the  desert  of  life  all  wearily; 
No  joy  on  earth  for  the  pilgrim  soul — 
On,  on  forever  drearily; 
O'er  the  mountain  height 
In  the  tempest  night, 
Through  the  mist  and  through  the  gloom. 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  13 

We  press  on  to  the  tomb, 
While  the  deathlike  pall  of  a  midnight  sky 
Hangs  over  past  and  futurity. 

And  the  echo  of  wandering  feet  I  hear, 
And  human  voices  and  hearts  are  near; 
But  lonely,  lonely  each  one  goeth 
On  his  dark  path  and  little  knoweth 

Of  love,  kind  words  and  sympathy. 
Oh,  fain  I  would  lay  me  down  to  die; 
For  the  upward  glance  of  a  tearful  eye. 

Is  all  that  I  have  known  of  humanity. 

Yet  must  I  on,  the  darker  and  drearer. 

And  lonelier  ever  the  pathway  seems, 

And  the  spectral  shadow  of  death  draws  nearer, 

And  rare  and  faint  are  the  sunlight  gleams; 

An  unseen  power  impelleth  us  on — 

Till  we  reach  the  shores  of  the  fathomless  sea. 

Where  time  poureth  down  to  eternity. 

Lycidas  Improvises  an  Answer  to  Beatrice's 

Vision. 
I  am  not  surprised  that  you  leave  your  tale  thus. 
Woman  can  sacrifice  all  for  love,  but  life  looks 
hopeless  when  she  is  called  upon  to  sacrifice  for 
duty.  But  I  think  yourconception  of  duty  some- 
what erroneous,  although  fashioned  after  that 
simple  folk-tale.  The  Story  of  Eden,  and  typifies 
the  average  parents  who  pride  themselves  on  the 
ignorance  and  innocence  of  their  daughters  as 
they  go  forth  into  love  and  marriage.  As  Plato 
has  explained,  the  intermediate  or  human  state 


i4  Celestial   Conferences   on  Love 

of  man  made  the  desire  for  the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  inevitable,  and  was  necessarily  a 
part  of  the  Divine  purpose.  Likewise  Virgil 
took  Dante  first  to  Hell,  i.  e.,  to  the  Knowledge 
of  Sin,  because  such  knowledge  is  the  beginning 
of  repentance,  and  evil  must  be  known  to  be 
avoided.  But  at  this  stage  of  the  world's  history 
we  do  not  have  to  experience  all  things  to  obtain 
this  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  much  can  be 
obtained  by  instruction.  But  it  never  seems  to 
have  occurred  to  many  parents  that  in  a  matter 
that  plays  so  large  a  part  in  lifers  happiness,  that 
they  should  instruct  their  children  in  the  science 
and  art  of  love.  Love  has  its  laws,  its  psychol- 
ogy and  physiology,  and  furthermore  like  music 
and  painting  is  one  of  the  finest  arts  requiring 
much  practice  and  instruction.  They  should  also 
be  instructed  in  domestic  art  No  man  would  be 
employed  to  build  the  Panama  canal  without 
special  training,  yet  women  the  country  over  are 
intrusted  with  the  vital,  mental,  social  and  moral 
welfare  of  the  individuals  who  make  up  th^  state 
without  any  preparation  whatever  other  than 
inherited  tradition,  and  the  pages  of  the  Fireside 
Companion.  With  this  knowledge,  love  and 
duty  would  be  less  in  conflict.  In  the  Divine 
Comedy  Virgil  represents  Knowledge,  and  Bea- 
trice Revelation  or  Divine  Philosophy.    I  will 


Celestial   Conferences  on  Love  15 

attempt  to  finish  your  story,  assuming  a  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil  to  be  a  part  of  the  divine 
intention,  and  necessary  to  spiritual  evolution — 
a  story  of  Eden  more  up-to-date. 

The  Harmony  of  Enlightened  Love  and  Duty. 

After  wandering  for  many  days,  and  failing  to 
find  the  garden  of  free  love,  unrestricted  by  Duty, 
Brighteyes  decided  to  return  to  Duty^s  Garden 
of  Pleasure. 

As  Aurora  with  rosy  fingers  opened  the  crimson 
doors  of  the  Orient,  and  permitted  Apollo,  the  far- 
darter,  to  emerge  in  his  golden  chariot  and  drive 
the  shadows  of  night  before  him,  making  the 
heavens  resplendent  with  his  glory,  and  the 
desert  more  inhospitable  and  bare,  Brighteyes 
thought  she  beheld  a  beautiful  garden  beyond. 
She  journeyed  on  and  on,  but  came  no  nearer, 
and  at  last  the  garden  faded  away.  Deluded  by 
these  visions  she  wandered  long.  Again  a  garden 
appeared  that  surely  looked  like  her  home,"-was 
she  to  be  deceived  by  another  mirage  ?  No !  At 
last,  she  beheld  the  garden  of  her  childhood,— for 
had  she  not  in  this  short  time  become  a  woman,— 
and  there  Siood  Duty  at  the  gate.  But  though  her 
C(  urage  rose  as  she  approached,  her  limbs  grew 
weaker  and  weaker,  and  she  sank  down  fainting. 


i6  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

dying,  in  the  desert  with  the  Garden  of  Pleasure 
just  beyond.  But  a  noble  knight  came  riding  by, 
one  who  had  fought  his  way  through  the  ''Vale 
of  Tears"  and  ''Desert  of  Life''  and  had  been 
shown  the  "Cities  of  the  World'*  by  One  from  a 
high  Mountain,  and  yet  preferred  the  quiet  of 
Duty's  Garden.  He  lifted  the  limp  form  of 
Brighteyes  up  gently  onto  his  prancing  palfrey, 
and  bore  her  into  the  Garden.  As  they  entered 
Duty  said:  "Enter  Thou  in  and  enjoy  the  fullness 
thereof,  and  know  that  love  is  only  at  its  highest 
when  one  has  learned  to  suffer  and  obey."  At 
these  words  Brighteyes  opened  her  eyes  and 
looked  at  Duty,  and  was  surprised  to  see  that 
his  was  not  a  white  and  deathlike  face,  but  was 
a  face  radiant  with  love.  Soon  she  recovered 
her  strength  and  was  permitted  to  wander  among 
the  flowers  and  pick  them  as  her  best  judgment 
dictated,  and  they  seemed  so  much  more  beauti- 
ful, and  so  much  sweeter  than  before,  that  she 
could  not  help  questioning  them  thus: 

O!  Tell  me  flowers 

When  hour  by  hour 
I  doting  gaze  upon  thy  beauty 

Why  thou  the  while 

Dost  only  smile 
On  one  whose  purest  love  is  duty. 

But  she  no  longer  cared  for  the  pansies  of  blue 
and  gold,  for  she  had  found  the  true  pansy  of 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  ly 

blue  and  gold,  Enlightened  Love,  and  with  this 
she  had  struck  the  invisible  rock  of  life,  and  it 
had  opened  and  laid  at  her  feet  the  silver  of  kind- 
ness, the  gold  of  friendship,  pearls  of  truth,  and 
the  crystal  dewdrops  of  a  lover's  tears. 

Daily  she  walked  among  the  flowers  as  of  yore, 
listening  to  the  whisperings  of  their  loves,  and 
smiling  back  smile  for  smile.  But  now  she 
walked  with  a  more  womanly,  aye,  a  true  queenly 
mien,  because  of  the  noble  knight  who  walked  by 
her  side.    And  thus  she  spake: 

The  flowers  are  talking  and  whispering, 

With  pity  my  features  they  scan. 
O  pray  do  not  chide  our  sister, 

Thou  sorrowful  pale-faced  man. 

Moved  by  the  plea  of  the  flowers,  the  knight 
spoke  very  gently  to  Brighteyes,  of  Duty,  thus: 

There  are  those  who  ask  not  if  thine  eye 

Be  on  them;  who  in  love  with  truth, 
Where  no  misgiving  is,  rely 

Upon  the  genial  sense  of  youth; 
Glad  hearts  without  reproach  or  blot. 
Who  do  thy  work  and  know  it  not; 
Ohl  if  through  confidence  misplaced, 

They  fail,  thy  saving  arms,  dread  powerl 
Around  them  cast. 

Serene  will  be  our  days  and  bright 

And  happy  will  our  natures  be. 
When  love  is  an  unerring  light, 

And  joy  its  own  security. 
And  they  a  blissful  course  may  hold 


l8  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

Even  now,  who  not  unwisely  bold 
Live  in  the  spirit  of  this  creed, 
i        Yet  seek  thy  firm  support,  according  to  their  need. 

Stern  Lawgiver!     Yet  thou  dost  wear 

The  Godhead's  most  benignant  grace; 
Nor  know  we  anything  so  fair 

As  the  smile  upon  thy  face. 
Flowers  laugh  before  thee  in  their  beds, 
And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads; 
Thou  dost  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong, 
And  the  most  ancient  heavens  through  thee  are  fresh  and 
strong. 

And  thus  Brighteyes  replied  to  the  knight: 

O,  blest  seclusionl  when  the  mind  admits 

The  law  of  Duty;  and  can  therefore  move 

Through  each  vicissitude  of  loss  and  gain. 

Linked  in  entire  complacence  with  her  choice; 

When  youth's  presumptousness  is  mellowed  down, 

And  womanhood's  vain  anxiety  dismissed; 

When  wisdom  shows  her  seasonable  fruit, 

Upon  the  boughs  of  sheltering  leisure  hung 

In  sober  plenty;  when  the  spirit  stoops 

To  drink  with  gratitude  the  crystal  stream 

Of  unreproved  enjoyment;  and  is  pleased 

To  muse  and  be  saluted  by  the  air 

Of  meek  repentance,   wafting  wall-flower  scents 

From  out  the  ruins  of  crumbled  pride. 

And  chambers  of  transgression  now  forlorn. 

O,   calm,   contented  days,   and  peaceful  nights! 

Who  when  such  good  can  be  obtained,  would  strive 

To  reconcile  her  womanhood  to  a  couch 

Soft,   as  may  seem,  but,  under  that  disguise. 

Stuffed  with  the  thorny  substance  of  the  past 

For  fixed  annoyance:  and  full  oft  beset 

With   floating  dreams,   black   and  disconsolate, 

The  vapory  phantoms  of  futurity? 


Celestial   Conferences   on  Love  ig 

Plato.  Life  needs  the  stage  of  duty,  which  must 
in  large  measure  be  crystallized  into  law, 
in  order  that  natural  impulses  may  be  restrained, 
and  higher  orders  of  life  recognized.  But  beyond 
duty  and  law  there  must  be  the  stage  of  love, 
which  alone  reveals  to  man  the  heart  of  reality. 
On  the  other  hand,  love  that  would  be  genuine 
comes  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill  just  law. 
Through  the  history  of  the  world  much  of  the 
conflict  of  love  and  duty  has  been  man-made. 
Overthrow  unjust  and  unnatural  law,  and  love 
and  light  will  make  the  rest  easy.  Love  pro- 
claims the  emergence  of  a  New  World,  and  the 
development  of  a  higher  spiritual  being,  who 
undertakes  to  conduct  his  life  from  a  point  of 
view  of  objective  truth  and  comprehensiveness. 
More  and  more  as  man  realizes  this  impersonal 
and  universal  standpoint,  more  and  more  will  he 
become  capable  of  genuine  love  and  justice. 


Will  Woman  Fail  in  Duty? 


W 


Beatrice. 

ARK  the  birds  of  Edenl 
How  their  voices  ring! 
Bubbling  notes  from  lyric  throats! 
How  the  rapture  rises,  floats 
O'er  the  hills  of  Eden, 
Down  the  vales  of  Eden, 
Hark  the  birds  that  sing! 

Miracle  in  Eden! 
Lo — ^Jehovah  spake: 
**I  will  leave  man  not  alone! 
I  will  give  him  for  his  own 
A  meet  help  in  Eden!" 
And  he  gave  in  Eden! 
From  man's  sleep  in  Eden, 
Man  and  woman  wake! 

Lycidas. 

A  helpmeet  for  man.     O  woman,  made 
Like  him  in  God's  own  image! — make  reply 
To  challenge  of  the  ages:     Didst  thou  fail 
To  be  what  God  created  thee  to  be? 
We  await  thine  answer! 


Beatrice. 


When  failed  I  thee? 
Thou  cravest  of  me 
Myself.     I  gave  my  flesh — my  soul, 

20 


Celestial   Conferences  on  Love  21 

To  mate  with  thine, 
That  thine  and  mine, 
According  to  a  law  divine 
Should  make  a  perfect  whole. 

When  failed  I  thee? 

Full  joyfully 

1  gave  thy  strong  sons  breath. 

Did  I  bewail 

The  shadowed  vale 

My  feet  must  traverse?     Did  I  fail 

In  life,  for  dread  of  death? 

When  failed  I  thee? 

Thou  cravest  of  me 

A  home.     In  cave,  in  hut,  I  made 

Mild  hearth-flames  leap. 

When  thou  wouldst  sleep. 

Of  skins,  of  fleeces,  soft  and  deep, 

Thy  bed  for  thee  I  laid. 

When  failed  I  thee? 

Meet  help  in  me 

Didst  thou  not  find  in  every  need? 

Through  praise,  through  blame, 

I  dared  to  claim, 

Unforfeited,  my  Eden  name — 

Help  meet  for  man,  indeed! 


Lycidas. 


Beyond  the  vales  of  Eden  lies  the  worldl 
Beyond  the  rivers  four  lie  seas  and  plains 
Lie  tents,   lie   towns,   lie   citiesl     Woman   speak! 
This   age   requires  it  of  thee:    Hast  thou   failed 
To  be  man's  meet  help  in  his  later  days? 


22  Celestial   Conferences  on  Love 


Beatrice. 


When  have  I  failed  thee?  From  Paradise  banished 

Forth  from  its  portals  together  we  came, 

Straight  they  were  sealed  with  the  sword  that  was  flame! 

Eden,  our  Eden  of  ignorance,  vanishedl 

Nay,  'twas  our  destiny — 'twas  not  our  shamel 

Failed  I  in  counseling?    Failed  I  to  minister 

Unto  thy  soul's  need  as  well  as  thy  clay's? 

If  we  chose  right  at  some  parting  of  ways, 

Though  the  way  chosen  frowned  darkling  and  sinister, 

Claim  1  too  boldly  my  share  of  the  praise? 

When  have  I  failed  thee?     My  feebler  steps  lengthening, 
Still  kept  pace  with  thee,  lest  thou  should  find, 
Suddenly  lonely,  thou'dst  left  me  behind. 
Tirelessly,  wistfully,  strove  I  for  strengthening 
Bonds  that  our  comradeship  firmer  should  bind. 


Lycidas. 


O  woman,  made  to  be  man's  comrade,  made 
To  toil  together  with  him   (never  he 
Alone,  thrice  never  thoul)  unto  the  solemn  end 
That  God  shall  at  last  look  upon  His  world 
And  see  that  it  is  good! — O  woman,  spe-kl 
The  future  craves  it  of  thee!  All  the  world 
To-day  awaits  thine  answer.     Wilt  thou  fail 
To  be  man's  comrade  when  the  morrow  breaks? 


Beatrice. 


1  shall  not  fail  theet    Ask  of  me 
New  help  in  every  newest  need! 
Thine  Eden  comrade  still  shall  be. 
With  more  than  Eden  loyalty. 
Meet  help  for  thee  indeed! 


Celestial   Conferences   on  Love  23 

I  did  not  fail  thee  when  I  guessed 
My  soul  was  breath  like  thine. 
Our  comradeship  was  never  blessed 
Before,  as  it  shall  be,  in  quest 
Together  of  a  grail  divine. 

I  did  not  fail  thee  when  I  came 
Forth  from  those  walls  where  thou  and  1 
Have  cloistered  love.     Did  my  fair  name 
Lose  aught  of  whiteness?     Did  the  flame 
Upon  Love's  altar  sink  and  die? 

Nay — rather,  never  hath  it  burned 
So  bright,  so  steadfast  as  to-dayl 
Unto  my  altar  task  returned, 
I  bring  new  wisdom  I  have  learned: 
New  fagots  on  my  fire  to  lay. 

I  did  not  fail  thee  when  the  door 
Of  knowledge  tardily  swung  wide, 
Still  learning,  1  shall  prove  the  more 
Thy  perfect  comrade  than  before — 
Shall  keep  me  closer  to  thy  side.* 


* 


For  further  development  of  this  thought,  see  Miss  Wild- 
man's  Western  Reserve  Anniversary  poem. 


The  Woman  Movement 

Beatrice. 

J  HAVE  been  reading  quite  a  little  lately  about 
the  New  Woman  movement,  one  wing  of 
which  seeks  to  do  away  with  a  consider- 
able portion  of  the  conflict  between  love  and 
duty  by  making  love  free,  marriage  free  and 
divorce  free.    They  say: 

"May  we  not  now 
Our  contract  make  and  marry  before  heaven? 
Are  not  the  laws  of  God  and  Nature  more 
Than  formal  laws  of  men?     Are  outward  rites 
More  virtuous  than  the  very  substance  is 
Of  holy  nuptials  solemnized  within? 

The  eternal  acts  of  our  pure  souls 

Knit  us  with  God,  the  soul  of  all  the  world, 
He  shall  be  priest  to  us;  and  with  such  rites 
As  we  can  here  devise  we  will  express 
And  strongly  ratify  our  hearts'  true  vows. 
Which  no  external  violence  shall  dissolve." 

Love,  indeed,  is  the  real  marriage,  the  legal 
marriage  is  only  the  outward  and  social  confir- 
mation. But  so  long  as  the  law  does  not  enforce 
the  natural  obligations  of  love  without  compli- 

24 


Celestial   Conferences  on  Love  25 

ance  with  the  legal  forms,  they  are  essential.  So 
long  as  woman  must  bear  and  feed  children  from 
her  own  body,  it  is  utter  nonsense  for  her  to  talk 
of  maintaining  her  independence,  earning  her 
own  living,  going  her  own  way,  and  remaining 
fettered  only  by  love.  True  love  is  not  merely 
an  incidental  aspect  of  life,  it  is  the  total  expres- 
sion of  the  union  of  minds  and  bodies  in  a  single 
life-stream.  The  best  interests  of  the  child  re- 
quire a  division  of  labor,  and  it  is  absurd  for  the 
woman  to  attempt  to  assume  it  wholly  or  deny  it 
altogether.  The  result  of  a  too  high  philosophy 
is  sure  to  lead  to  the  lowest  things.  So  long  as 
the  law  does  not  enforce  the  natural  obligation 
of  love,  legal  marriage  is  essential,  for  the 
attempt  to  fight  the  social  currents  and  carry  out 
the  natural  obligations  of  love  purely  from  a 
sense  of  duty  is  usually  a  failure.  Therefore  the 
only  course  open  is  to  make  the  natural  laws  of 
love  and  legal  laws  coincide. 

Lycidas.  It  often  happens  that  a  young  couple, 
perhaps  little  more  than  children, 
momentarily  dazed  by  an  emotion  which  Plato 
has  called  a  madness,  are  hurried  before  a  minis- 
ter to  bind  themselves  for  life.  They  make 
eternal  vows  of  constancy,  knowing  nothing  of 
the  world,  scarcely  more  of  each  other,  knowing 


26  Celestial  Conferences  on  Love 

nothing  of  the  marriage  laws,  scarcely  more  of 
the  arts  of  love  and  housekeeping.  No  wonder 
the  poet  speaks  of  destiny's  'little  children 
stumbling  in  the  dark"  with  a  "blind  understand- 
ing/' with  the  result  that  they  put  their  lips  to 
the  bowl  and  laugh  at  duty.  There  will  always 
be  a  veil  past  which  these  children  cannot  see  if 
they  will  not  learn,  if  parents  will  not  instruct, 
but  Beatrice  and  I  believe  that  they  can  find  the 
Golden  Key  that  opens  the  door  of  happiness  in 
Enlightened  Love,  and  while  this  may  need  sup- 
port by  Enlightened  Law,  happiness  is  certainly 
not  to  be  found  beyond  the  pale  of  the  law.  Even 
so  great  and  noble  a  soul  as  George  Eliot  found 
this  true,  to  cite  only  one  instance. 

Amiel.  What  is  constancy  in  Love?  Either  an 
accident  or  a  fortunate  state  of  mind. 
To  promise  to  continue  in  a  state  over  which 
your  will  has  no  control.  It  is  never  an  honest 
promise,  it  can  only  be  an  honest  hope.  Love 
comes  and  goes,  no  man  can  stay  it.  The  law 
should  seek  to  give  play  to  its  natural  movements. 

Emerson.    All  true  souls  are  progressive,  and  to 

these  progressive  souls  all  loves  and 

friendships  are  momentary.    Do  you  love  me? 

means,  do  you  see  the  same  truth?    If  you  do 


Celestial  Conferences   on  Love  27 

we  are  happy  with  the  same  happiness;  but  pres- 
ently one  of  us  passes  into  the  perception  of  new 
truth; — we  are  divorced,  and  no  tension  in 
nature  can  hold  us  to  each  other.  I  know  how 
delicious  is  this  cup  of  love, — 1  existing  for  you, 
you  existing  for  me;  but  it  is  a  child  clinging  to 
his  toy, — an  attempt  to  eternize  the  fireside  and 
nuptial  chamber. 

When  we  speak  truly,  is  not  he  only  unhappy 
who  is  not  in  love  ?  his  fancied  freedom  and  self- 
rule,  is  it  not  so  much  death?  He  who  is  in  love 
is  wise  and  becoming  wiser,  sees  newly  every 
time  he  looks  at  the  beloved  object,  drawing  from 
it  with  his  eyes  and  his  mind  those  virtues  which 
it  possesses.  Therefore  if  the  object  is  not  a 
living,  expanding  soul,  he  presently  exhausts  it. 
But  the  love  remains  in  his  mind;  and  it  craves 
a  new  and  higher  object.  And  the  reason  why 
all  men  honor  love,  is  because  it  looks  up  and 
not  down;  aspires  and  not  despairs. 

Lycidas.  Granting  that  this  is  the  law  of  love, 
and  that  it  holds  uncontrolled  sway  in 
the  Celestial  Sphere,  it  cannot  hold  such  sway  in 
this  Human  Sphere,  for  as  the  sap  rises  in  the 
plant  and  suspends  the  law  of  gravitation,  so  the 
Law  of  Childhood  must  in  no  small  measure  sus- 
pend this  Law  of  Love.    Yet  there  is  no  question 


28  Celestial  Conferences  on  Love 

in  the  minds  of  the  philosophical  sociologists  who 
have  made  a  specialty  of  this  subject  that  the 
monogamic  institution  of  marriage  needs  to  be 
modified  and  varied  in  the  way  of  greater  free- 
dom. Think  of  the  dark  shadow  cast  by  the 
hundreds  of  thousands,  perhaps  millions  of  un- 
happy and  unattached  women  on  the  institution 
of  matrimony,  which  the  sociologists  say  is  essen- 
tial to  the  happiness  and  well-being  of  the  matron. 
Is  it  creditable  that  the  spiritual  exaltation  of  the 
happy  wife  rests  on  a  pyramid  of  degraded  souls  ? 
Think  of  the  thousands  of  homes  where  drunken- 
ness and  brutality  rule.  Is  it  creditable  that  so 
beautiful  an  institution  as  matrimony  should 
sanction  a  slavery  worse  than  death  ?  We  do  not 
need  absolute  freedom  that  would  produce  chaos, 
but  we  need  such  freedom  as  results  from  the 
natural  laws  of  love,  the  rights  of  childhood  and 
social  order. 

Beatrice.  Another  important  writer  on  the  "New 
Women  Movement,*'  proposes  that 
the  prostitute  should  receive  social  recognition  as 
filling  an  honorable  and  necessary  place  in  the 
social  order.  A  recognition,  I  suppose,  such  as 
the  hetasras  received  in  Grecian  society. 

Considering  the  matter  as  calmly  and  sanely 
as  we  may,  giving  due  weight  to  all  the  facts,  we 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  29 

must  say  that  if  there  is  no  other  way  to  correct 
the  present  state  of  affairs  this  is  a  necessary 
logical  conclusion.  If  there  is  a  better  way,  as  I 
am  convinced  there  is,  the  suggestion  is  simply 
the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the  present  order. 

That  important  women  writers  should  propose 
free  love  and  free  prostitution  as  ideals  of  the 
new  "Feminist  State"  is  certainly  amazing,  and 
shows  how  a  too  sudden  increase  of  freedom 
leads  to  license,  and  emotion  takes  the  place  of 
thought.  If  these  proposals  had  come  from  men, 
who  have  the  reputation  of  being  lax  and  liberal, 
it  would  not  have  been  so  surprising  as  coming 
from  the  supposedly  conservative  women.  We 
can  only  believe  that  they  are  not  true  to  their 
type. 

The  absolute  freedom  that  these  New  Women 
want  would  not  be  advisable,  for  a  great  many 
men  and  women  are  very  fickle,  as  shown  by  the 
fact  that  they  not  infrequently  get  a  divorce  and 
marry  over  again.  With  these  emotional  people 
each  emotion  sets  up  a  claim  to  fill  the  whole  of 
life.  For  each  new  emotion  the  earnest  poetic 
soul  feels  willing  to  die.  Yet  each  is  driven  away 
by  its  followers.  The  feet  of  them  that  shall  bear 
it  out  are  before  the  door  even  while  the  trium- 
phant emotion  is  reigning  over  the  heart  within. 

The  poet  Novalis,  upon  the  death  of  his  be- 


30  Celestial  Conferences  on  Love 

trothed,  made  a  sort  of  divinity  of  the  departed, 
and  dated  a  new  era  from  the  date  of  her  death. 
He  resolved  to  follow  her  to  the  grave  within  one 
year.  Within  the  year  he  was  betrothed  anew. 
If  such  is  Novalis  what  will  be  a  lesser  spirit? 
But  if  it  is  necessary  to  choose  between  free  love 
or  free  prostitution  and  liberal  divorce,  I  prefer 
the  latter.  For  in  spite  of  the  fickleness  referred 
to  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  individual  rather 
than  society  should  be  the  principal  factor  in 
determining  this  freedom.  Neither  religion  nor 
law,  neither  society  nor  the  family,  can  decide 
what  a  marriage  kills  in  a  human  being,  or  what 
it  may  be  the  means  of  saving.  Only  that  being 
knows  the  one  and  feels  the  other.  Only  that 
being  can  determine  how  far  it  may  be  possible 
to  have  so  far  finished  with  existence  as  to  be 
willing  to  sacrifice  the  remainder  for  the  children. 
A  mother  can  do  this  oftener  than  a  father,  but 
in  no  case  is  there  any  standard  that  others  can 
use  to  determine  when  an  excess  of  suffering  is 
present. 

Plato.  It  is  amazing  that  a  civilization  that  has 
produced  the  steam  engine,  dynamo, 
wireless  telegraphy  and  the  talking  machine, 
should  have  made  no  improvements  in  the  insti- 
tution of  matrimony.    When  one  surveys  the 


Celestial  Conferences  on  Love  31 

whole  course  of  human  history  nowhere  can  the 
institution  of  marriage  be  found  in  so  sad  a  state 
as  under  Christianity.  Religious  dogma  and 
bigotry  erected  a  stone  wall  between  the  institu- 
tion of  marriage  and  natural  laws,  thus  in  effect 
setting  up  two  Gods,  one  of  Nature  and  one  of 
Authority. 

The  Catholic  Church  held  that  since  marriages 
entered  into  with  the  warmest  love  often  turn 
out  badly,  it  was  absurd  to  base  marriage  on  the 
emotion  of  love.  In  fact  the  richer  and  more 
developed  the  personality  the  less  stable  its  soul. 
Thus  the  highest  as  well  as  the  lowest  need  an 
inflexible  and  irremovable  tie  to  prevent  their 
being  at  the  mercy  of  the  winds  and  waves  of 
their  emotions.  Protestantism  made  love  the 
basis  of  marriage,  but  having  no  well-grounded 
conception  of  the  nature  of  the  institution  fell 
half  way  back  on  the  Canon  Law.  Marriage  as 
an  indissoluble  sacrament  and  the  wife  as  a  piece 
of  property  are  still  the  warp  of  that  institution 
in  spite  of  the  pretty  designs  that  have  been 
woven  into  its  woof  to  deceive  the  young. 
Nothing  is  more  natural  than  that  love's  longing 
for  eternity  should  prompt  the  lovers  to  vows  of 
eternal  fidelity;  nothing  is  more  Satanic  than  that 
Society  should  seize  upon  this  promise  and  base 
a  legal  institution.    Every  lover  believes  himself 


32  Celestial   Conferences  on  Love 

to  be  exempted  from  the  sacrifice  of  illusion,  and 
no  experience  of  the  irretrievable  mistakes  of 
others  has  ever  opened  the  eyes  of  those  blinded 
by  love.  We  ought  to  perceive  that  unconditional 
fidelity  to  one  person  may  be  just  as  disastrous 
to  the  personality  as  unconditional  continuance 
in  a  faith  or  an  employment.  Those  who  are 
now  patching  the  sackcloth  of  asceticism  with  a 
few  shreds  from  the  purple  mantle  of  personality 
are  spoiling  both;  no  human  being  is  master  of 
his  fate  when  he  has  united  it  to  another's.  The 
possibility  of  being  a  complete  personality  in  and 
through  love  depends  in  half  upon  the  pure  and 
whole  desire  of  the  other  to  share  in  developing 
the  common  life. 

The  notion  that  the  church  has  fostered  that 
the  present  form  of  monogamic  union  is  in  com- 
plete harmony  with  the  claims  of  evolution, — 
with  the  laws  of  nature,  has  left  the  race  in  the 
same  state  of  ignorance  as  to  the  conditions  most 
favorable  for  its  development,  as  in  my  time. 
Therefore  the  vital  needs  of  the  race  and  the  indi- 
vidual demand  the  right  to  a  more  extended 
experience;  for  granting  that  monogamy  must 
ever  remain  the  central  fact,  it  seems  certain  that 
variations  may  be  discovered  to  meet  the  various 
needs  of  complex  personalities.  Of  course  no 
one  knows  whether,  at  the  end  of  the  new  paths, 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  33 

you  will  not  be  confronted  by  the  riddle  of  the 
Sphinx:  how  the  parents  are  to  avoid  being  sacri- 
ficed for  the  children  or  the  children  for  the 
parents.  But  there  is  one  thing  certain,  that  on 
the  path  we  have  been  following  we  have  already 
arrived  at  the  Sphinx.  And  all  those  who  have 
been  torn  to  pieces  at  its  feet  are  witnesses  that 
on  this  path  mankind  did  not  arrive  at  the  solu- 
tion  of  the  riddle. 

Emerson.  In  Christianity,  and  more  particularly 
Catholic  Christianity  a  contempt  of 
the  sense  element  is  still  largely  in  evidence.  We 
have  here  to  do  with  a  Manichean  element 
which  has  forced  its  way  into  Christianity,  and, 
in  spite  of  all  outward  strictness,  tends  to  pro- 
duce inward  shallowness;  for  shallowness  it  is 
when  the  chief  care  of  life  is  to  carry  on  a  strug- 
gle against  the  sensuous,  to  weaken,  degrade, 
and  stultify  it  as  far  as  possible,  and  when  those 
who  have  been  peculiarly  successful  in  stamping 
out  the  sense  element  are  honored  as  heroes,  and 
selected  as  patterns,  no  matter  how  hard  and 
shallow  they  may  be.  For,  after  all,  what  inner 
purification  of  the  soul  or  development  of  the 
spiritual  life  is  gained  by  such  a  misuse  of  the 
senses?  Moreover,  this  repression  of  the  senses, 
like  everything  else  unnatural,   must  produce 


34  Celestial   Conferences   en   Love 

greater  evils  than  those  it  undertakes  to  remove. 
Nature  is  in  the  habit  of  taking  severe  revenge 
for  misuse.  But  the  matter  does  not  end  with 
the  rejection  of  this  type  of  asceticism.  The 
sensuous  and  sexual  side  of  life  shows  us  man 
associated  in  the  most  intimate  manner  with 
nature;  here,  more  than  anywhere  else,  nature 
holds  him  fast.  Yet,  at  the  same  time,  the  de- 
velopment of  spiritual  life  has  raised  him  far 
above  nature,  and  therefore  the  simple  and  unso- 
phisticated attitude  is  no  longer  possible.  The 
sensuous  has  become  a  problem  which  from  the 
point  of  view  of  human  life  admits  of  various 
solutions.  Should  it  be  free  to  follow  its  own 
course  in  complete  freedom,  without  reference 
to  the  higher  aims  of  the  spirit,  according  to  the 
whim  and  desire  of  the  individual,  or  should 
it  subordinate  itself  to  the  purposes  of  the 
spiritual  life,  here  finding  its  measure?  Those 
who,  bearing  in  mind  the  indisputable  right 
of  nature,  decide  in  favor  of  the  former 
course,  usually  overlook  the  fact  that  in 
our  complex  civilization  we  have  no  longer  to 
deal  with  a  pure  nature;  the  sense  element  is 
often  refined  and  artificial,  nay,  degenerate.  In 
order  to  separate  what  is  genuine  in  nature  from 
what  is  not,  we  need  the  assistance  of  spiritual 
work.    A  simple  capitulation  to  the  so-called 


Celestial   Conferences   on  Love  35 

sense  element  in  the  life  of  to-day  is  absolutely 
out  of  the  question.  It  is  quite  probable  that  any 
reform  of  the  institution  of  marriage  in  the  inter- 
est of  spiritual  progress  would  be  abused  by  the 
sensualist,  and  subject  reformers  to  grave  criti- 
cism. But  when  we  believe  we  have  found  the 
right  way,  we  must  go  forward  with  it,  for  no 
abuse  of  marriage  inside  of  law  and  order  and 
under  the  weight  of  responsibility  could  equal 
the  sensual  chaos  that  now  exists  outside  of  law 
and  freedom  from  responsibility.  Law  and  re- 
sponsibility are  the  only  methods  of  forcing  the 
sensuous  nature  along  the  path  of  moral  and 
spiritual  progress. 

Lycidas.  The  reason  that  so  many  people  think 
that  the  face  of  Duty  is  white  and 
deathlike  is  that  our  present  code  of  morals  re- 
quires so  much  that  is  unnecessary.  Whereas  if 
Society  required  only  what  was  necessary  for 
social  stability  and  to  conform  to  the  Laws  of 
Nature,  the  face  of  Duty  would  be  seen  to  be 
beautiful.  Society  burdens  humanity  with  too 
many  artificial  duties. 

The  institution  of  marriage  should  be  so  large 
and  roomy  as  to  give  full  play  to  normal  human 
nature.  It  should  be  a  bright  temple  where  love 
and  happiness  find  its  most  perfect  nurture.  Then 


36  Celestial   Conferences   on  Love 

the  dark  shadow  that  has  always  lain  across  its 
portal  would  vanish.  Duty  would  become  a 
kind  friend  instead  of  a  white  and  deathlike  face 
staring  at  one  out  of  dark  corners  to  frighten. 

Beatrice.  Our  conference  seems  now  to  have 
reached  a  supreme  contradiction.  It 
has  been  made  out  very  clearly  that  love  is  not 
only  the  crown  and  glory  of  humanity,  but  is 
indispensable  to  its  development.  Further,  it  has 
been  made  plain  that  the  love-life  can  only  be 
successfully  lived  in  the  married  state  without 
great  damage  to  the  individual  and  society.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  has  been  made  probable  that 
for  the  great  majority  the  married  state  is  a  place 
of  sorrow  and  not  infrequently  tragedy;  and  that 
in  order  to  maintain  this  institution  Society,  like 
the  Egyptians  of  old,  is  obliged  to  sacrifice  not 
simply  one  virgin  to  the  dark  waters  of  the  Nile, 
but  untold  thousands.  Marriage  then  seems  to 
be  a  trap,  into  which  the  'little  children  stumbling 
in  the  dark''  have  been  caught  without  warning 
from  their  elders,  and  left  to  beat  out  their  life 
against  the  bars.  Can  this  contradiction  be 
resolved  ? 

Lycidas.    I  have  already  indicated  that  if  the  cage 
was  made  large  enough,  and  suitable 
enough  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  captives  they 
would  never  discover  their  captivity. 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  37 

Beatrice.    The  question  still  remains, — is  this 
possible  ? 

Lycidas.  Love  and  marriage  are  inextricably 
mixed  up  with  virtue,  and  form  a  part 
of  the  central  theme  of  the  divine  purpose.  To 
doubt  that  happy  love  and  marriage  is  possible 
for  all  normal  and  typical  men  and  women,  who 
take  the  trouble  to  learn  nature's  laws,  is  to  doubt 
the  divine  wisdom. 

Beatrice.    What  form  is  this  marriage  to  take? 

Lycidas.  Like  the  discovery  of  all  other  import- 
ant natural  and  social  laws,  it  will  come 
as  the  result  of  the  study  of  experience  and  ex- 
periment. This  much  I  feel  sure  of,  the  transi- 
tion stage  to  the  new  order  will  make  the  old 
bones  of  bigotry  and  dogma  rattle,  in  fact  the  old 
skeletons  that  have  so  long  imposed  upon  us  as 
living  things  may  fall  all  to  pieces.  This  may 
make  it  appear  to  the  worshippers  of  these  ghastly 
relics  that  the  world  is  coming  to  an  end;  but  in 
a  thousand  years  from  now  this,  to  us,  very 
enlightened  period  will  appear  as  the  dark  ages. 
If  people  could  only  rise  to  the  cosmical  point  of 
view,  they  would  plainly  see  that  the  race  is  still 
in  its  infancy,  still  in  the  barbarous  period. 


Divorce  versus  Duty 

Plato. 

fOU  seem  to  have  divined  my  thought.  In 
my  "Republic"  I  advocated  too  great  a 
license  for  the  body,  while  modern  peoples 
have  so  fettered  the  body  in  a  legal  way  that  their 
society  is  crumbling  in  an  illegal  way.  In  former 
times  it  was  sufficient  that  the  union  should 
involve  physical  reciprocity,  but  in  this  age  the 
union  must  involve  psychical  reciprocity  as  well. 
But  this  latter  is  each  day  becoming  more  difficult 
because  of  the  tendency  to  discourage  a  woman 
from  merging  her  individuality  with  that  of  her 
husband's.  Much  of  the  trouble  must  be  charged 
to  the  growing  number  of  masculine  women  and 
degenerate  men  like  Ibsen  and  Nietzsche,  preach- 
ing a  doctrine  of  ''self-realization"  that  ignores 
all  social  obligations. 

But  an  even  more  difficult  problem  is  to  com- 
bine physical  and  psychical  reciprocity  in  a 
satisfactory  marriage  institution,  because  of  the 
disharmony  between  mind  and  body.    This  diffi- 

38 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  39 

culty  you  will  recollect  I  pointed  out  under  the 
figure  of  the  charioteer  (intelligent  will)  govern- 
ing the  black  and  white  horses  (body  desires  and 
mind  affections),  and  which  I  have  said  is  more 
pressing  among  peoples  where  culture  is  generally 
so  high. 

Beatrice.    It  seems  strange,  Lycidas,  that  you 
would  tear  down  the  institution  of 
marriage  without  having  any  constructive  ideas 
to  advance. 

Lycidas.  I  have  reached  no  definite  conclusion, 
for  the  reason  that  human  nature  is  so 
complex  and  also  so  changeable,  as  indicated  by 
the  change  since  the  time  of  Plato.  Then  if  one 
were  to  propose  a  strictly  scientific  institution,  it 
would  have  to  meet  with  prejudice,  custom, 
taste,  sentiment,  and  one  could  not  tell  just  how 
these  would  manifest  themselves  until  experi- 
ments were  made  with  different  classes  of  people. 
A  transition  institution  might  be  necessary  until 
a  change  in  opinion  and  feeling  were  brought 
about,  and  social  adjustments  made.  Therefore 
I  have  said  I  would  like  to  see  all  proposals  first 
tested  in  the  laboratory  before  being  adopted  by 
any  nation. 


40  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

Beatrice.    How  are  you  going  to  test  marriage  in 
a  scientific  laboratory  ? 

Lycidas.  We  have  many  state  governments, 
and  if  these  would  make  it  permissible 
for  their  citizens,  or  better  yet  for  the  citizens  of 
a  county  to  try  some  plan  that  appealed  to  them, 
in  co-operation  with  the  department  of  sociology 
of  the  state  university,  in  order  that  careful  data 
might  be  kept,  and  if  these  different  experiments 
were  scattered  about  the  country,  we  could  get 
some  idea  how  they  would  work,  and  how  the 
prejudices  and  tastes  of  the  people  would  react 
towards  them.  But  it  is  probably  Utopian  to 
expect  to  do  anything  of  this  sort  under  a  popular 
government.  As  Carlyle  long  ago  pointed  out 
the  best  government  is  a  monarchy,  provided  we 
could  always  be  sure  of  getting  the  ablest  man 
for  monarch. 

Beatrice.    If  you  were  king  what  experiments 
would  you  try  out  in  your  sociological 
laboratory? 

Plato.    We  will  listen  with  a  great  deal  of  interest 

to  your  plans  for  a  New  Utopia.    My 

Utopian  Republic  became  obsolete  before  it  ever 

had  a  trial,  but  1  am  content  with  the  knowledge 


Celestial   Conferences   on  Love  41 

that  it  has  had  a  powerful  influence  upon  all  re- 
formers, has  given  courage  to  all  progressive 
thinkers. 

Lycidas.  Not  having  expected  to  be  appointed 
king,  even  of  Utopia,  the  best  I  can  do 
is  to  mention  some  of  the  plans  proposed  by 
others.  One  woman  has  published  a  book  in 
which  she  advocated  trial  marriage  for  one  year, 
the  parties  thereto  having  the  option  of  dissolv- 
ing or  continuing  it  provided  there  were  no  chil- 
dren. This  of  course  would  only  touch  the  sur- 
face of  the  problem  and  might  do  for  trial  by 
some  timid  New  England  county. 

Goethe  proposed  a  contract  for  five  years.  The 
distinguished  anatomist,  Prof.  E.  D.  Cope,  pro- 
posed a  system  of  contracts.  The  first  was  to 
run  for  a  period  of  not  less  than  five  years, 
terminable  by  either  party;  the  next  for  ten  or 
fifteen  years,  terminable  only  by  mutual  consent; 
and  the  third  contract  to  be  indissoluble.  The 
objection  made  by  Robert  Ingersoll  against  a 
proposition  of  this  kind,  was  that  it  placed  woman 
at  a  disadvantage,  due  to  the  loss  of  beauty  after 
five  or  fifteen  years.  Again,  if  during  the  first 
year  it  is  discovered  there  are  no  binding  ties, 
four  more  years  out  of  one's  life  is  too  long. 
Still  it  might  do  for  some  conservative  county  as 


42  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

a  transitional  form,  until  it  got  courage  to  try 
something  more  scientific. 

Ellen  Key  proposes  divorce  by  mutual  consent, 
as  in  China, .Japan,  Sweden,  and  the  Grand 
Duchy  of  Luxumberg.  The  views  of  this  great 
Swedish  reformer  are  ably  maintained  in  her 
work  *'Love  and  Marriage/'  Ellen  Key,  with  the 
insight  of  a  seer,  saw  that  the  movement  for  the 
emancipation  of  woman  tended  to  emancipate 
her  from  her  sex  and  make  her  masculine.  She 
was  wise  enough  to  claim  for  woman  a  place  in 
the  world  as  a  woman. 

Havelock  Ellis,  who  has  devoted  his  life  to  this 
general  subject,  states,  in  his  work  on  *'Sex  and 
Society,"  that  many  variants  of  monogamy  will 
be  needed  to  fit  human  nature.  Ellis  speaks  with 
the  highest  consideration  of  the  great  experiment 
of  Humphrey  Noyes.  Noyes,  you  will  recall, 
started  a  real  laboratory  experiment  on  his  own 
account,  in  what  is  known  as  the  Onieda  Com- 
munity. It  was  an  experiment  of  some  300  in 
group  marriage  and  eugenics,  and  doubtless 
would  have  continued  the  success  it  attained  but 
for  the  religious  bigotry  of  the  neighboring  people 
who  were  undoubtedly  living  on  a  lower  moral 
level.  This  community  effectually  provided  for 
the  widow  and  widower,  the  orphan  and  the 
infirm.    Its  level  of  health  and  culture,  industry 


Celestial    Conferences    on    Love  43 

and  happiness  was  superior  to  the  general  level 
in  the  world  outside.  While  the  community  pro- 
vided for  the  physiological  law  of  one  and  many, 
it  is  not  clear  how  well  it  provided  for  the  psy- 
chological law  of  one  and  one.  To  provide  for 
this  defect,  and  for  the  fact  that  it  was  found 
necessary  to  have  a  limit  to  the  size  of  the  family, 
it  has  been  proposed  to  constitute  a  small  group 
of  fifteen  or  twenty  monogamic  units  into  a 
Greater  Family  or  corporation.  Incompatibility 
would  be  provided  for  by  a  divorce  granted  by 
the  Executive  Committee  and  ratified  by  the  Pro- 
bate Court,  if  the  desire  continued  for  same  dur- 
ing a  period  of  six  months.  Both  parties  would 
remain  members  of  the  Greater  Family,  and 
could  marry  again  either  within  or  without  the 
Family  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  Committee. 
This  is  substantially  the  view  of  Schleiermacher. 
Bernard  Shaw  lays  down  the  following  two 
principles  as  axiomatic: 

( 1 )  Every  adult  normal  and  healthy  individual 
has  the  right  to  parentage. 

(2)  Every  adult  normal  and  healthy  individual 
has  the  right  to  love  and  sex  experience,  without 
interference  by  law,  so  long  as  no  children  result. 

His  discussion  of  these  principles  is  interesting 
because  he  finds  the  difficulties  in  carrying  them 


44  Celestial  Conferences   on   Love 

out  SO  great  that  he  winds  up  with  recommending 
easy  and  cheap  divorce. 

Paul  and  Victor  Marguerite  propose  the  parties 
shall  choose  arbitrators  to  settle  the  matter  of 
children  and  property,  and  that  when  both  agree 
to  divorce  it  shall  be  registered  in  six  or  twelve 
months,  and  in  three  years  if  only  one  desires  it. 
This  seems  the  most  likely  direction  in  which  a 
conservative  people  will  first  institute  reform. 
Certainly  all  people  who  believe  that  the  legal  tie 
is  only  a  symbol  for  an  inward  spiritual  grace, 
and  that  when  this  does  not  exist  divorce  is  a 
sacramental  duty,  will  be  in  favor  of  some  such 
reform.  Possibly  a  private  contract  setting  forth 
how  the  parties  understand  the  present  marriage 
laws  will  precede  general  divorce  laws.  For 
example,  I  notice  this  clause  in  the  prenuptial 
contract  of  a  young  university  couple:  "Marriage 
shall  not  be  a  contract  giving  either  any  control 
over  or  possession  of  the  other;  that  it  shall  not 
be  a  bar  to  other  marriage  should  this  prove  un- 
fruitful; that  the  tie  shall  terminate  simultane- 
ously with  the  death  of  love  on  either  side,  and 
neither  shall  have  the  right  to  restrain  the  other 
should  he  or  she  see  fit  to  incur  other  parental 
responsibility."  This  is  significant  only  as  show- 
ing that  people  are  beginning  to  awaken  out  of 
their  dogmatic  slumber  on  this  subject. 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  45 

Beatrice.    I  wonder  what  the  spirits  would  think 
of  our  New  Thought  marriage? 

Lycidas.    If  you  can  recall  the  service,  suppose 
you  repeat  it. 

Beatrice.    Every   word   is   engraved   upon  my 
heart. 

"Do  you,  Beatrice,  take  this  man  for  your  other  self,  to  so 
blend  yourselves  together  into  one  harmonious  soul,  that  while 
neither  one  shall  lose  his  individuality,  yet  neither  one  shall 
be  wholly  complete  without  the  other? 

"Do  you  solemnly  vow  to  the  great  God  consciousness  within 
you,  which  permeates  the  entire  universe,  to  live  under  the  law 
of  harmony  and  to  displace  in  your  life  all  inharmonies,  no 
matter  from  what  source  they  may  arise,  and  quickly  as  you 
recognize  their  presence,  and  that  you  will  renev/  this  vow 
as  often  as  it  may  be  broken? 

"Do  you  pledge  yourselves  anew  to  each  other  on  the  altar 
of  harmony,  and  vow  to  the  God  consciousness  within  each  of 
you  to  teach  each  other,  but  to  keep  the  hands  off  the  other's 
life  as  to  permit  each  to  grow  and  unfold  in  his  own  way  to 
the  utmost  limit?" 

Plato.  That  seems  to  agree  with  my  teaching 
of  the  unity  of  soul  and  body  and  of  man 
and  woman  on  the  man-orb  plane  of  being,  and 
also  with  my  teaching  of  the  dialectic  of  love. 
It  will  be  undoubtedly  sufficient  for  such  ideal 
counterparts  as  you  and  Lycidas,  but  for  the  gen- 
erality of  mankind  there  should  be  provisions  for 
annulment,  as  in  the  contract  of  marriage  men- 


46  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

tioned  by  Lycidas,  and  then  there  should  be  the 
assurance  that  the  parties  entering  into  the  mar- 
riage are  in  mental  and  physical  self-harmony. 
Your  service  has  the  right  keynote, — harmony. 
The  message  that  God  has  sent  to  man  through 
his  conscience  is, — 1  ought  to  be  in  harmony  with 
all, — self,  mankind,  nature,  God. 

Beatrice.    But  why  meddle  further  with  the  insti- 
tution of  marriage?    It  suits  me  per- 
fectly,— you  are  all  the  world  to  me,  and  I  am 
sure  I  am  all  the  world  to  you. 

Lycidas.  Love  has  its  selfish  moods,  and  when 
love  is  very  comfortable  and  happy  it 
can  see  no  excuse  for  the  misfortunes  of  others, 
just  as  the  rich  can  see  no  excuse  for  anybody 
being  poor.  Our  little  world  cannot  be  taken 
as  a  sample  of  the  larger  world.  Just  because 
we  have  been  fortunate  in  securing  some  enlight- 
enment to  guide  our  loving,  and  in  meeting  in 
the  great  jostle  of  human  beings  our  counterpart, 
and  perhaps  in  some  measure  by  accident  struck 
the  right  path  that  leads  from  sex-love  to  spiritual 
love,  and  have  climbed  the  Olympian  Mount,  and 
now  from  this  high  seat  hold  celestial  confer- 
ences; we  have  no  right  to  assume  that  this  is 
equally  possible  for  all  others  under  present 
conditions. 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  47 

Love,  before  the  reflective  faculties  have  fully 
developed  (and  sometimes  afterwards)  is  almost 
always  a  species  of  madness,  possibly  due  to  a 
recapitulation  of  the  stages  of  our  animal  evolu- 
tion. Hence  it  has  been  said  from  the  earliest 
times, — ''Love  is  blind.''  It  is  certainly  very 
difficult  to  enlighten  once  the  madness  has  seized 
the  person,  and  as  a  consequence  many  become 
misraated,  which  has  led  Plato  to  say  that  mar- 
riage is  a  lottery.  When  we  were  experiencing 
the  ecstasy  of  love  were  we  capable  of  disinter- 
ested judgment,  might  you  not  have  been  easily 
induced  to  play  the  leading  part  in  some  ''Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream'"'  ? 

Our  institution  of  marriage  instead  of  provid- 
ing for  the  correction  of  these  human  errors, 
rests  upon  another  form  of  the  notion  of  "taking 
celestial  things  by  storm'"'  which  is  as  equally 
erroneous  as  free  love.  It  holds  that  the  finest 
things  of  the  spirit  are  only  reached  by  the  celi- 
bate, and  marriage  according  to  St.  Paul  is  per- 
missive only  in  deference  to  a  depraved  human 
nature. 

Other  theologians  find  in  theT}arden  of  Eden 
legend  that  the  monogamic  and  indissoluble  mar- 
riage is  a  divinely  ordained  institution;  it  never 
having  occurred  to  them  that  God  would  make 
one  revelation  in  the  Bible  and  a  contrary  one  in 


48  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

nature.  The  revelation  embedded  in  the  laws  of 
nature  we  know  to  be  authentic,  and  therefore 
if  we  are  to  remain  rational,  we  cannot  accept 
any  interpretation  of  the  Bible  that  contradicts 
such  laws.  Especially  is  this  the  case  when  we 
apply  the  pragmatic  criterion  of  successful  work- 
ing. What  has  been  the  result  of  forcing  love 
into  this  mold  of  theological  dogma?  I  have 
answered  this  question  for  you  by  piling  the 
library  table  high  with  books  which  show  that 
the  institution  of  marriage  has  broken  completely 
down.  To  go  over  this  literature  makes  the  heart 
heavy  with  despair,  and  lays  such  a  burden  upon 
the  soul  that  the  only  alternative  seems  to  be  for 
the  race  to  destroy  itself,  or  to  curse  God  for  hav- 
ing permitted  the  human  race  to  thus  debase 
itself.  Then  in  this  darkest  hour  a  ray  of  light 
begins  to  pierce  the  gloom.  We  remember  how 
we  often  thought  God  had  fettered  man's  free- 
dom too  greatly  while  now  it  appears  he  has 
given  him  too  much  freedom.  The  light  grows 
brighter,  we  realize  that  this  freedom  which  we 
have  perverted  under  the  influence  of  religious 
dogma  can  be  used  better.  We  are  stimulated 
by  the  thought, — man  can  and  must  do  better  in 
the  future. 
Among  the  books  you  will  find, — 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  49 

Sanger's  ''History  of  Prostitution." 

Ellis'  ''Psychology  of  Sex,"  6  vols. 

Maupassant's  works,  15  vols. 

Balzac's  "Comedie  Humaine,"  20  vols. 

Century  Co.'s  "White  Slave"  series,  4  vols. 

Stead's  Pall  Mall  Gazette  revelation. 

Report  of  Chicago  Vice  Commission. 

Psychopathia  Sexualis. 
-  Then  there  are  volumes  of  reports  and  statis- 
tics on  divorce,  desertion,  orphan  and  insane 
asylums,  on  the  blind,  imbecile,  deaf  and  dumb, 
and  the  heavy  percentage  of  diseased  and  defec- 
tives throughout  general  society,  reports  of  infan- 
ticide, baby  farms,  operations  on  women  due  to 
unmentionable  causes,  poisoning,  suicide,  murder 
and  the  whole  dismal  series.  But  there  is  no 
account  of  the  suffering  that  has  destroyed  souls, 
except  as  the  attempt  is  made  in  some  cases  to 
classify  the  causes  of  insanity.  There  is  no  at- 
tempt to  measure  the  sorrow  hidden  deep  in  the 
heart.  No  Dante  could  live  and  picture  the 
Inferno  of  soul-torture  due  to  this  destruction  of 
the  love-life  due  to  the  bigotry  that  denies  nature's 
laws.  Until  one  has  become  acquainted  with 
this  literature  I  do  not  think  they  are  competent 
to  form  a  judgment  as  to  duty  and  divorce. 

All  of  these  black  pages  are  the  result, — aside 
from  some  allowance  for  natural  depravity  that 


50  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

would  probably  prevail  under  any  system, — of 
the  religious  fanatics  laying  a  too  heavy  burden 
of  artificial  duties  upon  humanity,  of  attempting 
to  force  sex-love  into  such  a  narrow  mold  as  to 
stifle  the  soul  and  warp  the  body.  One  might 
just  as  well  attempt  to  force  the  Mississippi  into 
narrow  levees,  only  unlike  the  river  sex-love  is 
not  content  with  overflowing  a  few  states,  but 
has  overflown  all  Christendom,  submerging  all 
but  a  small  percentage,  in  one  way  or  another. 
Rather  than  admit  the  stupendous  failure  of  the 
present  institution  of  marriage,  our  religious 
fanatics  stifle  their  own  sorrow  and  say  "Hush! 
Hush!''  and  make  laws  against  the  mailing  and 
printing  of  books  that  tell  the  truth  about  the 
decay  of  our  civilization.  The  young  people 
must  know  nothing  of  this  failure  of  the  divine 
institution  of  marriage,  nor  are  they  enlightened 
how  to  win  happiness.  No!  Smiling  friends 
with  hopeless  hearts  lead  them  to  the  altar  to  the 
sweet  strains  of  the  Wedding  March,  and  watch 
them  ''united  until  death''  under  a  canopy  of 
roses,  from  which  they  know  they  can  only 
escape  by  crawling  through  a  sewer, — the  divorce 
court. 

Parliaments,  councils  and  commissions  may 
sit  on  the  ''social  evil"  from  now  until  dooms- 
day, and  it  will  bob  up  serenely;  unless  they 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  51 

reform  the  institution  of  marriage  so  that  it  will 
completely  satisfy  the  desires  implanted  by 
nature  in  the  normal  soul  and  body.  Do  this 
and  you  can  weight  man  and  woman  as  heavily 
with  responsibilities  and  obligations  as  need  be, 
and  force  them  along  the  road  of  an  orderly  and 
efficient  life.  If  such  life  does  not  square  with 
your  dogmas  and  theologies,  so  much  the  worse 
for  the  theologies, — they  need  reforming.  But 
I  have  no  notion  that  the  majority  of  our  people 
will  have  sufficiently  risen  from  their  barbarism 
and  bigotry  to  reach  this  rational  height  for  sev- 
eral generations.  With  the  theological  fervor  of 
those  that  caused  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew and  the  burning  of  Bruno,  they  will  watch 
with  sanctimonious  faces  the  slow  scorching  and 
withering  of  souls,  the  progress  of  the  "White 
Slave  traffic,'*  pictured  for  all  to  see  in  hundreds 
of  feet  of  moving  pictures,  and  ask,  "Am  1  my 
brother's  keeper?'*  No  horror  can  cause  them 
to  re-examine  their  premises.  If  this  supreme 
devilishness  is  due  to  the  revelations  of  the  Bible 
in  opposition  to  the  revelations  of  the  Divine 
Purpose  in  Nature  and  on  the  tablets  of  the  Soul, 
it  would  be  far  better  to  throw  the  Bible  into  the 
flames  than  man.    I  am  convinced  that  the  final 


52  Celestial   Conferences   on  Love 

authority,  the  supreme  revelation,  is  to  be  found 
in  nature  and  in  the  soul  of  man;  and  the  ''Social 
Evir'"  has  testified  for  thousands  of  years  that  we 
are  working  in  opposition  to  nature. 

I  know  that  there  are  a  great  many  who  think 
that  if  they  had  created  the  world  they  could 
have  done  a  better  job;  while  a  good  many  more 
think  that  the  world  must  be  made  to  go  in 
accordance  with  their  personally  constructed 
dreams.  The  theologians  hold  that  the  world 
has  somehow  gotten  oflf  the  track  and  that  it  only 
requires  their  inflexible  determination  to  set 
everything  right.  As  to  making  a  careful  study 
of  the  situation, — What's  the  use?  Have  we  not 
firmly  settled  it  in  our  minds  that  man  is  a  fallen 
creature  and  only  needs  to  be  redeemed,  in  face 
of  the  fact  that  is  being  forced  upon  us  from  all 
sides  that  man  was  originally  a  brute  to  whom  a 
divine  spark  has  been  added,  and  that  the  animal 
cannot  be  suppressed  in  a  day  and  an  angel  made 
by  redemption?  All  this  is  wrong;  we  are  here 
to  live  a  human  life,  a  life  of  body  as  well  as  soul, 
and  our  society  should  be  organized  accordingly. 
This  is  a  task  requiring  great  wisdom  on  the  part 
of  parliaments  and  councils,  owing  to  the  great 
range  of  culture  among  our  people  from  savage 
to  savant,  from  degenerate  to  divine. 


Woman's  Sphere 

Beatrice. 

ANOTHER  phase  of  the  conflict  of  love  and 
duty  among  the  New  Women  is  that  be- 
tween the  soul  and  the  family.  They  see 
duty  on  the  side  of  self-realization,  with  intellec- 
tual education  of  themselves  rather  than  of  the 
race.  Perhaps  you  remember  that  Ibsen's  drama 
of  'The  Doll's  House"  ends  with  Nora  going  out 
the  door  leaving  her  family.  She  had  experienced 
an  intellectual  awakening,  and  never  having  been 
instructed  in  the  philosophy  and  art  of  love,  and 
the  mission  of  the  family,  sees  self-realization 
only  in  the  breaking  of  family  ties.  It  is  calcu- 
lated that  the  women  of  the  world  will  produce 
annually  a  hundred  thousand  novels  and  works 
of  art,  which  might  better  have  been  boys  and 
girls. 

Lycidas.    Let  me  read  some  passages  from  ''Love 
and  Marriage'^ 
"The  brain-woman's  time  tables  know  nothing' 
of  collisions.    Her  train  schedule  is  clear:  nurs- 


53 


54  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

ing,  institute,  and  kindergarten,  school  and  dormi- 
tory for  the  children,  whose  number  is  fixed 
according  to  the  requirements  of  society.  The 
meals  are  served  automatically  from  a  common 
kitchen;  the  housekeeping  is  done  by  adding  up 
the  cash  book.  In  a  costume  designed  for  work 
or  athletics,  she  goes  to  her  study.  When  the 
work  is  done,  there  is  five  minutes'  conversation 
on  the  telephone  with  each  of  the  children;  two 
hours'  exercise  in  the  open  air.  In  the  afternoon, 
ten  minutes'  conversation  on  the  telephone  with 
her  husband,  thirty-five  minutes'  pause  for  the 
reception  of  ideas;  the  evenings  are  given  up  to 
meetings  of  a  utilitarian  or  social  nature.  On 
Sundays,  the  husband  and  children  are  invited, 
when  three  hours  are  set  apart  for  the  elimination 
of  their  defects,  the  rest  of  the  time  for  profitable 
amusement.  Such  a  woman  has  never  a  thought 
of  her  children  while  at  work;  never  wants  to 
snatch  ten  minutes'  extra  chat  with  her  husband. 
She  wakes  refreshed  after  the  hygienic  number 
of  hours'  sleep, — everything  goes  like  clockwork. 
''Never  has  the  world  seen  a  more  contradic- 
tory creature  than  this  woman,  melancholy  and 
wistful,  cold  and  sensitive,  thirsting  for  life  and 
tired  of  life  at  the  same  time.  The  blood  dances 
otherwise  in  her  veins,  sings  another  song  in  her 
ears,  than  it  has  any  other  woman  since  time 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  55 

began.  She  sees  through  her  husband  and  is  a 
stranger  to  him;  his  desires  seems  brutal  to  her 
finely  shaded  and  contradictory  moods;  she  is 
not  won  even  when  she  allows  herself  to  be  em- 
braced. When  fate  attempts  to  tune  these 
fragile  beings  to  their  full  pitch  they  break  like 
harp  strings  under  a  rough  touch.  But  the  irony 
of  it  all  is  when  she  is  confronted  with  the  choice 
of  not  succeeding  at  all  or  of  succeeding  by  the 
means  she  abhorred  in  him  before  she  herself 
discovered  that  it  is  the  struggle  for  existence 
that  gives  the  bird  of  prey  its  beak  and  claws. 

"At  a  Scandinavian  meeting  on  the  woman's 
question,  a  cantata  was  sung  which  proclaimed 
that  the  human  race  under  the  supremacy  of 
man  had  stumbled  in  darkness  and  crime.  But 
the  race  was  now  to  be  newly  born  from  the  soul 
of  woman,  the  sunrise  would  scatter  the  darkness 
of  night,  and  the  advent  of  the  Messiah  was 
certain." 

Plato.  Having  been  able  to  follow  the  work  of 
man  from  my  time  to  the  present  day, 
and  to  see  around  the  world  at  a  glance,  I  have 
been  impressed  with  his  mastery  of  physical 
laws.  See  the  industries  he  has  created,  and  their 
wonderful  products.  See  his  towns  and  cities, 
with  their  temples  and  churches,  the  skyscrapers 


56  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

and  marts  of  trade,  and  above  all  the  infinite 
number  of  fine  homes.  Then  remember  that 
every  machine,  every  stone  and  brick,  has  been 
put  into  its  place  by  the  hand  of  man.  In  the 
last  analysis  this  stupendous  achievement  has 
been  inspired  by  the  love  of  woman.  If  it  had 
not  been  for  that  inspiration  man  would  be  still 
dwelling  in  caves.  Now,  why  should  woman 
desire  to  compete  with  man  in  his  mastery  of 
physical  law,  and  become  just  another  man?  I 
recant  my  former  teaching,  the  eternal  truth 
having  been  revealed  to  me.  Is  it  not  plain  that 
her  business  is  to  inspire,  and  that  she  can  only 
do  that  so  long  as  she  remains  truly  feminine? 
Should  not  her  specialty  be  to  obtain  that  mas- 
tery over  spiritual  law  that  man  has  obtained 
over  physical,  building  in  the  divine  world  the 
home  not  made  with  hands?  Therefore  Society 
should  see  that  the  marriage  relation  should  be 
so  ordered  as  to  make  this  love  principle, — the 
dynamic  principle  of  industrial  and  spiritual 
progress,  constantly  effective. 

Beatrice.  Then  there  are  the  women  militant 
suffragettes  who  would  enter  politics, 
who  would  be  policemen,  cabdrivers,  farmers, 
blacksmiths,  etc.  These  women  are  for  the  most 
part  half  men,  and  they  ought  to  be  compelled 


Celestial   Conferences    on   Love  57 

to  wear  a  distinctive  half-man  dress  so  that  the 
typically  feminine  women  may  not  be  deceived 
by  their  cry  ''Votes  for  Women"  and  be  disgraced 
by  a  caricature.  In  fact  the  state  ought  to  decree 
in  case  of  war:  JJ^  \jul(mK. 

Thou  in  rude  armour  must  thy  limbs  invest,  aoju^  \XJi  • 

A  plate  of  steel  upon  thy  bosom  wear;  VamT'^'^'^^ 

Vain  earthly  love  may  never  stir  thy  breast,  U  ja'^ciW^  x<f\> 

Nor  passion's  sinful  glow  be  kindled  there.  \^|iuiffc  t   ^Yfli 

Ne'er  with  bride  wreath  shall  thy  locks  be  drfceff*^    U*^^* 

Nor  on  thy  bosom  bloom  an  infant  fair;  Ka^J^  ^Uaajl 

But  war's  triumphant  glory  shall  be  thine,  xAAjao-*    0<  \A^ 
Thy  martial  fame  all  women's  shall  outshine.     ^"^^i/^-.J, # 

Plato.    Look  back  to  the  beginning  of  civiliza- cma^^ 
tion,  and  follow  it  down  to  the  present  W    . 
day  and  you  will  see  that  it  was  founded  upon  \Mh^ 
and  is  ruled  by  a  truce  of  God  as  between  man  ^^/iju^ 
and  woman.   The  truce  is  based  upon  the  solemn  y^. 
covenant  that  the  weapon  of  physical  force  may  /^j 
not  be  applied  by  man  against  woman,  by  woman 
against  man.    Under  this  covenant  that  half  of  *^3Vua  - 
the  human  race  that  most  needs  protection  is 
raised  above  violence.    Under  this  covenant  a 
full  half  of  the  program  of  Christianity  has  been 
realized,  and  a  foundation  has  been  laid  upon 
which  it  is  possible  to  build  higher,  and  perhaps 
abolish  war.    And  now  this  solemn  covenant  so 
faithfully  kept  by  man,  not  to  strike  a  woman 
even  with  a  flower,  has  been  violated  by  the  mili- 


58  Celestial   Conferences  on  Love 

tant  suffragette  in  the  interest  of  her  morbid, 
stupid,  ugly  and  dishonest  programs. 

Lycidas.  Men  and  women,  like  plants  and  ani- 
mals, adapt  themselves  to  an  environ- 
ment. The  human  race  is  of  course  more  sus- 
ceptible to  a  mental  environment. 

In  primitive  times  man  and  woman  lived  very 
nearly  the  same  life;  the  woman  was  very  nearly 
as  masculine  as  the  man,  and  the  family  existed 
on  a  low  plane.  Then  came  the  division  of  labor, 
the  growth  of  culture,  the  establishment  of  a 
real  home  life  in  connection  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  feminine  graces.  It  was  not  until 
the  time  of  Dante  and  Petrarch  that  real  conjugal 
love,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  romantic  love, 
made  its  appearance  in  the  world.  Psychical  reci- 
procity now  became  essential  to  a  happy  mar- 
riage. It  would  appear  that  since  that  time  human 
happiness  had  reached  its  highest  point,  and 
that,  with  the  advent  of  woman's  suffrage  and 
equality  of  labor,  society  is  to  return  to  its  primi- 
tive antagonism.  Men  are  antagonistic  to  men, 
and  masculine  women  are  antagonistic  to  men. 

Adjustment  and  consequent  happiness  is 
brought  about  through  the  supreme  attraction  of 
a  feminine  woman  and  a  masculine  man.  Much 
data  might  be  brought  forward  at  this  point  to 


Celestial    Conferences   on   Love  59 

show  how  women  entering  into  man*s  employ- 
ment and  modes  of  thought  are  making  them- 
selves masculine,  how  the  suffrage  will  greatly 
increase  this,  and  that  an  increase  of  ten  to  fifteen 
per  cent,  of  masculinity  in  women  will  destroy 
the  happiness  of  the  home. 

The  science  of  biology  shows  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  the  ''eternal  feminine,"  unless 
there  is  a  permanent  environment.  Woman  is 
about  to  sell  her  birthright  gained  through  thou- 
sands of  years  of  struggle  for  a  mess  of  pottage, 
and  is  being  decoyed  by  the  loveless  and  unloved 
masculine  women  into  this  fanaticism,  which  is 
to  destroy  all  that  is  most  worth  while. 

Beatrice.  Havelock  Ellis  agrees  with  you  that 
man  and  woman  are  indefinitely  modi- 
fiable (within  certain  limits)  and  that  for  this 
reason  we  cannot  dogmatize  concerning  their 
respective  spheres. 

Lycidas.  1  believe  it  to  be  a  biological  fact  that 
there  is  one  type  among  human  beings 
around  which  other  types  oscillate.  In  this  I  see 
an  indication  of  the  Divine  purpose,  and  counter- 
parts of  this  type  are  happiest  and  most  firmly 
united.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  protest  against 
the  New  Woman  movement  which  tends  to 


6o  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

develop  a  masculine  type  of  woman.    They  can 
never  form  a  strong  or  happy  family. 

Amiel.  At  bottom,  woman's  mission  is  essen- 
tially conservative  without  discrimina- 
tion. On  the  one  hand,  she  maintains  God's 
work  in  man — all  that  is  lasting,  noble  and  truly 
human  in  the  race,  poetry,  religion,  virtue,  ten- 
derness. On  the  other  hand  she  maintains  the 
results  of  circumstances — all  that  is  passing, 
local,  and  artificial  in  society;  that  is  to  say  cus- 
toms, absurdities,  prejudices,  littlenesses.  She 
surrounds  with  the  same  respectful  and  tenacious 
faith  the  serious  and  the  frivolous,  the  good  and 
the  bad.  Well — what  then?  Isolate — if  you 
can — the  fire  from  the  smoke. 

It  is  a  divine  law  you  are  treating,  and  there- 
fore good.  The  woman  preserves;  she  is  tra- 
dition as  man  is  progress.  And  if  there  is  no 
family  and  no  humanity  without  these  two  sexes, 
without  these  two  forces  there  is  no  history. 

Beatrice.  Can  it  be  that  the  talented  woman  has 
actually  forgotten  that  destiny  in- 
tended her  to  be  a  woman,  and  bound  her  by  eter- 
nal laws  ?  Can  it  be  that  the  best  women  desire  to 
be  half  men?  A  woman  cannot  have  a  destiny 
of  her  own,  because  she  cannot  exist  alone.   The 


Celestial   Conferences   on  Love  6i 

more  womanly  she  is,  the  more  richly  endowed, 
all  the  more  surely  will  her  destiny  be  shaped  by 
the  man  who  takes  her  for  his  wife.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  there  is  a  kind  of  genius  peculiar  to 
women,  and  it  is  when  a  woman  is  a  genius  that 
she  is  most  unlike  man  and  most  womanly:  it  is 
then  that  she  creates  through  the  instrumentality 
of  her  womanly  nature  and  refined  senses.  The 
pendulum  receiving  sudden  shock  swings  too 
far, — the  martial  Amazon  on  the  one  hand  is  as 
far  from  woman's  true  position  as  the  intellec- 
tual Amazon  on  the  other.  To  cite  only  one 
example  Zonia  Kolvalevsky  was  a  great  mathe- 
matical genius,  and  had  a  large  acquaintance  with 
men  all  through  Europe,  but  not  one  of  them 
said  to  her,  ''1  cannot  exist  without  you."  Thus 
she  became  an  unhappy,  injured  little  woman, 
running  through  the  woods  with  a  wailing  cry 
for  a  husband.  Mrs.  Browning  has  voiced  the 
tragic  aspect  of  the  woman's  life  that  has  achieved 
a  literary  career  in  the  following  lines: 

My  father!     Thou  hast  knowledge,  only  thou, 

How  dreary  'tis  for  woman  to  sit  still 

On  hearing  the  nations  praising  them  far  off 

Too  far!  ay  praising  our  quick  sense  of  love 

Our  very  heart  of  passionate  womanhood, 

Which  could  not  beat  so  in  verses,  without. 

Also  being  present  in  the  unkissed  lips, 

And  eyes  undried  because  there  were  none  to  ask 

The  reason  why  they  grew  moist. 


62  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

To  sit  alone, 
And  think  for  comfort,  how  that  very  night 
Affianced  lovers,  leaning  face  to  face. 
With  sweet  half-listenings  for  each  others'   breath, 
And  reading  haply  from   a  page  of  ours 
To  pause  with  a  thrill  (as  if  their  cheeks  had  touched) 
When  such  a  stanza  level  to  their  mood. 
Seems  floating  their  own  thought  out — "So  I  feel 
For  thee" — "And  I  for  thee;  this  poet  knows 
What  everlasting  love  is!" 

To  have  our  books 
Appraised  by  love,  associated  with  love. 
While  we  sit  lovelessl     Is  it  hard  you  think? 
At  least  it  is  mournful.     Fame,  indeed  'twas  said, 
Means  simply  love.     It  was  a  man  said  that. 
And  then  there  is  love  and  love;  the  love  of  all. 
Is  but  a  small  thing  to  the  love  of  one. 
You  bid  the  hungry  child  be  satisfied. 
With  a  heritage  of  many  cornfields;  nay 
He  says  he's  hungry;  he  would  rather  have 
That  little  barley  cake  you  keep  from  him 
While  reckoning  up  his  harvests.     So  with  us, — 
We're  hungry. 

Emerson.  So  far  as  women  simply  enter  the 
callings  hitherto  occupied  by  men, 
compete  with  them,  performing  the  same  ser- 
vices with  the  same  objects  in  view,  there  is 
nothing  won  for  the  qualitative  advance  of 
civilization.  The  result  would  be  merely  the 
accomplishment  of  a  greater  amount  of  work  of 
an  average  quality  and  an  unoriginal  character. 
But  such  a  movement  means  the  declassing  of 
women,  since  in  the  field  of  the  merely  useful,  it 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  63 

is  unavoidable  that  masculine  attainments  should 
be  made  the  ideal  of  women,  and  they  should 
appear  as  mere  apes  of  men. 

Lycidas.  Quite  so.  To  ignore  the  peculiar 
organization  of  women,  and  attempt 
to  find  a  place  for  them  in  the  masculine  scheme 
of  things  instead  of  utilizing  them  for  certain 
lines  of  work  for  which  no  men  are  fitted,  is  just 
as  foolish  as  it  would  be  to  confine  persons  of 
special  gifts  to  unskilled  labor. 

It  is  quite  probable  that  in  literature,  art, 
music,  medicine,  religion  and  education,  dis- 
tinctly feminine  shadings  are  possible.  A  new 
industrial  society  in  which  a  purely  feminine  pro- 
duct is  possible,  a  new  world  of  culture  having 
a  significance  for  women  only;  is  the  highest 
and  most  spiritualized  ideal  that  the  New  Woman 
movement  offers. 

To  explain  away  the  generic  diflferences  be- 
tween masculine  and  feminine  souls  is  to  deprive 
life  of  one  of  its  finest  and  most  powerful 
attractions.  Man  is  a  being  whom  both  nature 
and  civilization  have  conspired  to  differentiate, 
and  the  masculine  tendency  displayed  by  this 
movement  lowers  the  sum  of  these  differences, 
and  consequently  of  life  itself  in  a  far  greater 
degree  than  is  possible  to  any  other  tendency. 


64  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

And  this  will  result  in  lowering  the  estimation  in 
which  women  are  held,  since  this  rests  upon  their 
dissimilarity  and  the  fact  that  their  spiritual  indi- 
viduality cannot  be  replaced  by  anything  else. 
The  sexes  should  be  regarded  as  of  the  same 
worth,  but  every  effort  should  be  niade  to  main- 
tain their  marked  dissimilarity. 

Many  historical  phenomena  show  that  the 
masculinization  of  woman  goes  hand  in  hand 
with  the  feminization  of  man.  The  obliteration 
of  specific  sex  characteristics  is  everywhere  the 
sign  of  biological  decadence,  so  that  these  femi- 
nine struggles  for  freedom  are  a  symptom  of  the 
degeneration  of  the  race.  In  two  generations 
after  the  women  of  Sparta  entered  political  life 
the  nation  disappeared  because  of  empty  cradles. 
Christianity  brought  woman  to  the  front,  and 
the  resulting  feminization  made  the  classic 
civilizations  easy  for  the  barbarians  to  overthrow. 

Beatrice.  Sixty  per  cent,  of  all  the  women 
workers  in  the  United  States  receive 
less  than  $325  per  year.  Now  most  of  these 
women  were  employed  solely  because  they  were 
able  and  willing  to  work  for  lower  wages  than 
men;  so  it  is  fair  to  say  that  they  underbid  the 
men,  and  either  displaced  them  or  forced  them 
to  accept  the  same  wretched  pay.    As  a  result, 


Celestial   Conferences   on  Love  65 

there  are  "textile  towns"  in  New  England,  where 
the  vast  majority  of  operatives  are  women  and 
children,  and  the  men  stay  at  home  and  take 
care  of  the  babies.  We  do  not  have  to  go  to 
ancient  history  for  illustrations  of  the  feminiza- 
tion of  men  due  to  women  seeking  a  career  apart 
from  her  home. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  women  seeking  an 
intellectual  career  carry  it  to  extremes,  become 
unfit  or  unattractive  for  mariage,  or  marry  late 
and  fail  in  their  duty  as  child  bearers,  leaving  the 
defectives  to  populate  the  country.  Woman 
must  recognize  her  limitation  and  place. 

Amiel.  When  one  has  studied  the  part  sex  has 
played  in  the  evolution  of  mind,  and  the 
development  of  the  organism  in  relation  to 
mating;  when  one  begins  to  get  an  insight  into 
the  supreme  role  that  sex  plays  in  the  human 
organism  to-day,  they  will  then  begin  to  realize 
the  importance  of  resisting  all  environmental 
influences  that  tend  to  modify  this  difference  in 
man  and  woman.  As  an  illustration,  take  the 
influence  of  sex  upon  the  development  of  the 
voice.  The  primary  function  of  the  voice  in  the 
vertebrates  was  to  serve  as  a  sex-call,  as  is  now 
its  exclusive  function  among  the  amphibia. 
Later  and  secondarily  it  came  to  be  employed  in 


66  Celestial    Conferences   on   Love 

relation  to  the  protection  of  the  young,  and  as  a 
means  of  communication  with  other  members  of 
the  species.  Finally,  in  man  it  came  to  aflFord 
the  means  of  articulate  language.  It  is  not  im- 
probable that  the  evolution  of  the  voice,  with  all 
its  tremendous  consequences  with  respect  to  the 
evolution  of  mind,  is  an  outgrowth  of  sex.  The 
voice  of  a  masculine  woman  grates  on  me  like 
the  filing  of  a  saw. 

Plato.  I  forsee  that  unless  the  direction  of  the 
New  Woman  movement  is  changed,  it 
will  do  more  damage  to  civilization  than  the  in- 
cursion of  barbarians  did  to  ancient  society.  By 
the  time  it  is  realized  that  society  is  on  the  wrong 
path,  the  cost  of  turning  back  and  starting  over 
again,  will  be  greater  than  the  Napoleonic  wars, 
in  fact,  it  will  be  incalculable.  Therefore,  I  warn 
you  not  to  be  hypnotized,  not  to  be  carried  away 
by  the  fanaticism  of  these  unlovely  and  unlov- 
able old  maids,  who,  jealous  of  the  happier  lot  of 
their  more  attractive  sisters,  are  trying  like  Sam- 
son to  pull  down  the  central  pillar  of  the  temple. 
Be  true  to  your  own  womanly  instincts,  and 
mark  out  a  path  of  advancement  along  feminine 
lines  instead  of  being  a  mere  *'ape  of  man." 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  6y 

Lycidas.  Now  let  me  give  you  a  couple  of  con- 
crete illustrations  of  the  futility  of  a 
great  ^'Career"  for  woman,  taken  from  a  collec- 
tion of  several  hundred.  This  is  the  heart  cry  of 
a  great  singer: 

*'Happy?     Nol     A  woman  is  only  happy  when  she  is  married 

under  happy  circumstances.     I  am  only  A G ,  a  unit, 

a  machine  for  the  production  of  music.  I  am  now  devoted  to 
the  art  of  music.  If  ever  the  true  home  beckons  to  me  I  will 
no  longer  be  an  artist,  but  will  give  up  singing.  A  woman 
cannot  serve  two  masters,  art  and  home.     Though  I  may  live 

at  the  S^ ,  I  think  the  factory  girl  or  the  girl  behind  the 

counter  in  your  stores  is  happier  than  I,  because  she  leads  a 
more  natural  life." 

Madame  De  La  Ruelle,  the  fifth  woman  ad- 
mitted to  the  French  bar,  and  who  holds  an  im- 
portant government  position,  ends  her  account 
of  her  hard  struggle  as  follows: 

"Thus  it  is  that  I  would  never  encourage  a 
young  girl  who  is  in  a  happy  condition  and  who 
enjoys  a  happy  family  life  to  try  to  be  independ- 
ent, or  ever  think  of  being  une  femme  arrive.  A 
woman  who  arrives  must  do  so  by  herself;  it 
means  loneliness.  I  would  rather  advise  her  to 
be,  in  the  true  and  noble  sense  of  the  word,  the 
wife  of  un  homme  arrive." 

Beatrice.    In    promoting    humanitarian    work, 

which   sphere   woman   should  make 

especially  her  own,  she  can  work  much  more 


68  Celestial  Conferences  on  Love 

effectively  as  a  wife,  than  as  a  politician.  The 
president  of  the  National  Red  Cross  Society  testi- 
fies as  to  how  much  more  effectively  she  can 
work  as  a  non-partisan,  in  her  appeal  to  all 
parties.  Other  women  leaders  in  humanitarian 
work  testify  likewise.  The  proposition  is  self- 
evident.  Whatever  career  a  woman  may  have, 
she  should  never  step  down  from  the  pedestal  of 
wife.  The  ballot  is  not  only  absolutely  unessen- 
tial but  detrimental.  No  good  woman  lives  to 
herself.  She  has  always  been  part  of  a  family, — 
as  wife,  sister,  daughter, — from  the  time  of  Eve. 
God  created  man,  not  as  an  individual  but  as  a 
family, — man  and  woman  together. 

According  to  a  law  divine  ' 

I  gave  my  flesh — my  soul 

To  mate  with  thine 

That  mine  and  thine 

Should  make  a  perfect  whole. 

Lycidas.  A  historian  of  Woman's  Suffrage,  says 
that  Mrs.  Bernard  Shaw  exactly  ex- 
pressed the  sentiments  of  all  suffragists,  when 
she  said  as  the  result  of  a  speech  by  the  Prime 
Minister  in  which  he  indicated  his  intention  to 
leave  woman's  suffrage  out  of  the  Electoral 
Reform  Bill,  that  she  felt  an  "impulse  of  blind 
rage,"  and  felt  as  personally  insulted  as  if  he 
had  said  to  her,  that  *'the  vilest  male  wretch  who 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  69 

can  contrive  to  keep  a  house  of  ill  fame  shall 
have  a  vote,  and  that  the  noblest  woman  in  Eng- 
land shall  not  have  one,  because  she  is  a  female."' 
Aside  from  the  irrational  character  of  the  lady's 
emotion,  we  may  remark  that  the  question  is  not 
the  respective  rights  of  human  beings,  as  such, 
to  the  ballot,  but  of  the  practical  advantage  to 
mankind  in  the  long  run  of  such  procedure.  Our 
conference  indicates  the  high  improbability  of 
any  such  advantage.  The  present  situation  does 
not  need  correction  by  increasing  the  franchise, 
but  by  limiting  male  franchise  to  worthy  and 
intelligent  members  rather  than  by  doubling  the 
numbers  of  the  unworthy. 


Conflict  of  Love  and  Duty  in 
Choosing  a  Soul-Mate 

Beatrice. 


m 


E  have  just  discussed  the  sphere  of  woman 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  New  Women 
Movement,  and  have  found  the  major 
current,  or  perhaps  more  correctly  the  more 
noisy  current,  demanding  an  independent  home 
Hfe  and  an  independent  career;  to  be  a  move- 
ment for  the  debasement  and  unhappiness  of 
woman,  as  well  as  for  the  disintegration  of  the 
finest  achievements  of  our  cililization.  The 
minor  and  quieter  movement  which  seeks  to  find 
a  career  for  woman  peculiarly  her  own,  rather 
than  making  her  a  mere  ''Ape  of  man"  was  also 
pointed  out  and  requires  further  discussion.  But 
I  would  like  you  to  consider  just  now  another 
phase  of  the  Conflict  of  Love  and  Duty, — the 
dilTiculty  of  finding  a  suitable  soul-mate  under 
our  present  social  conditions  and  with  our  present 
knowledge. 

70 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  71 

Duty  seems  to  call  on  man  and  woman  not  to 
abate  one  jot  of  their  ideals  in  choosing  a  mate, 
while  love  cries  compromise. 

The  bard  has  sung  that  God  never  formed  a  soul 

Without  its  own  peculiar  mate,  to  meet 
Its  wandering  half,  when  ripe  to  crown  the  whole, 

Bright  plan  of  bliss,  most  heavenly,  most  completel 
But  thousand  evil  things  there  are  that  hate 

To  look  on  happiness,  these  hurt,  impede, 
And  leagued  with  time,  space  circumstance,  and  fate 

Keep  kindred  heart  from  heart,  to  pine,  pant  and  bleed. 

And  as  the  dove  over  Palmyra  flying 

From  where  her  native  fount  of  Antioch  beams; 
Weary,  exhausted,  longing,  panting,  sighing, 

Lights  sadly  at  the  desert's  bitter  stream — 
So  many  a  soul  over  life's  desert  faring. 

Love's  pure  congenial  spring  unfound,  unquaffed, 
Suffers,  recoils, — then  thirsty  and  despairing 

Of  what  it  would,  descends  and  sips  the  nearest  draught. 

Lycidas.  However  it  may  be  with  woman,  we 
must  remember  that  for  man  he  can- 
not make  too  great  a  compromise  for  love  as 
against  duty.  He  should  remember  that  love  is 
only  a  noble  means  to  the  fullness  of  life.  Com- 
munion with  the  holy  spirit  give  us  glimpses  that 
life  has  a  grandeur  beyond  our  dreaming,  and 
that  rather  than  profane  it  we  must,  like  Amiel, 
take  our  solitary  way  to  cold  and  barren  peaks 
as  best  we  may.  For  a  voice  is  calling,  and  climb 
we  must,  if  we  outclimb  all  we  love  and  leave 
them  as  milestones  in  our  progress. 


73  Celestial   Conferences  on   Love 

What  are  perils  to  men  who  scorn  them? 

Perils  what  to  men  who  dare? 
Chains  to  hands  that  once  have  torn  them, 

Thenceforth   are  chains  of  air! 
The  winds  above  the  snowplains  fleet — 
Like  them  1  race  with  winged  feet. 
My  bonds  are  dropped;  my  spirit  thrills 
A  freeman  of  the  eternal  hillsl 
I  run  before  the  radiance  sent 
From  every  mountain's  silver  mail, 
Across  the  dark  gulfs  from  vale  to  vale. 

Beatrice.    I  know  that  the  poet  sings: 

Through  the  deep  caves  of  thought,  1  hear  a  voice  that  sings 

Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O  my  soul, 

As  the  swift  seasons  roll! 

Leave  thy  low  vaulted  past! 

Let  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last 

Shut  thi^  from  a  heaven  more  vast,  i 

Till  thou  at  length  are  free, 

Leaving  thine  outgrown  shell  by  Life's  unresting  seaf 

But  the  poet  is  singing  to  man's  not  to 
woman's  heart,  if  it  be  not  the  call  of  love. 
Man's  love  is  universal,  woman's  particular.  He 
loves  the  sentiment  of  love,  she  the  person.  He 
has  something  left;  the  more  womanly  she,  the 
less  remains. 

Lycidas.    What  has  he  left?    A  wide  woe  over 
the  whole  heart;  but  the  heart  too  re- 
mains— empty,  of  course,  but  firm  and  sound 
and  hot.    Loved  ones  are  lost,  not  love  itself; 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  73 

the  blossoms  are  fallen,  not  the  branches.  Verily 
he  still  wishes,  he  still  wills;  the  past  has  not 
stolen  from  him  the  future.  Arms  he  still  has  to 
embrace  withal,  a  hand  to  lay  upon  the  sword, 
and  eye  to  survey  the  world.  But  what  has  gone 
down  will  come  again,  and  that  will  remain  true 
to  him  which  is  forsaken, — thy  self  alone.  Free- 
dom is  the  glad  eternity. 

It  is  true  that  each  of  us  has  a  noble  destiny 
that  brooks  no  hindrance.  There  is  a  robbery 
against  which  a  man  always  protests  with  an  ir- 
repressible fire,  and  though  a  goddess  committed 
it  out  of  love,  and  offered  him  in  compensation  a 
world  of  paradises, — it  is  the  robbery  of  his  free- 
dom and  free  development. 

AmieL  Think  not,  Lycidas,  that  I  found  any 
glory  or  satisfaction  in  my  martyrdom 
in  doing  without  love.  As  I  came  to  look  back 
over  life,  my  ideals  became  less  austere.  Let  us 
not  be  over-ingenious.  There  is  no  help  to  be 
got  out  of  subtleties.  Besides  one  must  live.  It 
is  best  and  simplest  not  to  quarrel  with  any  illu- 
sion, and  to  accept  the  inevitable  good  tem- 
peredly.  Plunged  as  we  are  in  human  existence, 
we  must  take  it  as  it  comes,  not  too  bitterly,  not 
too  tragically,  without  horror,  and  without  sar- 
casm, or  a  too  exacting  expectation;  cheerful- 


74  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

ness,  serenity,  and  patience,  these  are  best, — let 
us  aim  at  these. 

I  have  made  use  of  the  ideal  itself  to  keep  me 
from  any  kind  of  bondage.  It  was  thus  with 
marriage;  only  perfection  would  have  satisfied 
me;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  was  not  worthy  of 
perfection — so  that  finding  no  satisfaction  in 
things,  I  tried  to  extirpate  desire  by  which  things 
enslave  us.  Independence  has  been  my  refuge; 
detachment  my  stronghold.  I  have  lived  the 
impersonal  life, — in  the  world,  yet  not  of  it, 
thinking  much,  desiring  nothing.  It  is  a  state  of 
mind  which  corresponds  with  what  in  women  is 
called  a  broken  heart;  and  it  is  in  fact  like  it,  since 
the  characteristic  of  both  is  despair.  When  one 
knows  that  one  will  never  possess  what  one 
could  have  loved,  and  that  one  can  be  content 
with  nothing  less,  one  has,  so  to  speak,  left  the 
world,  one  has  cut  the  golden  hair,  parted  with 
all  that  makes  human  life, — that  is  to  say  illusion 
— the  incessant  effort  towards  an  apparently 
attainable  end. 

Baatrice.  I  trust,  Lycidas,  that  this  word  direct 
from  your  sage  and  hero,  will  some- 
what modify  your  heroics.  I  am  sure  that 
woman's  love  cannot  wait  for  the  ideals  of  life, 
for  there  are  constantly  welling  up  from  the 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  75 

depths  of  her  soul,  voices  singing  of  home,  com- 
panionship and  love.  Angels*  voices  calling, 
ever  calling  from  out  the  coming  years,  little 
angel  hands  beckoning,  ever  beckoning  from 
across  the  Vale  of  Tears.  O,  how  can  she  wait 
altogether  for  ideals  of  duty  when  beauty  is 
swiftly  flying  by! 

And  yet  I  know,  a  man's  work,  that  is  his  real 
work,  must  be  first  with  him,  because  his  chosen 
work  is  his  character. 

A  man's  love  of  woman  is  not  his  character,  a 
love  of  women  comes  to  men  of  all  characters, 
but  a  man's  ideal  work  is  himself,  and  if  a  man 
is  false  to  that,  then  he  can  be  false  to  anything. 
And  while  I  am  sometimes  jealous  of  your  work, 
1  would  not  love  you  near  so  much  if  you  were  a 
mere  drifter.  Perhaps  my  petulance  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  your  great  interest  in  your  work 
overlooks  the  mood  that  craves  your  attention. 

Plato.  A  Supreme  love,  a  motive  that  gives  a 
rhythm  to  a  woman's  life  and  exalts 
habit  into  partnership  with  the  soul's  needs,  is 
not  to  be  had  where  and  how  she  wills;  to  know 
that  high  initiation,  she  must  often  tread  where 
it  is  hard  to  tread,  and  feel  the  chill  air,  and 
watch  through  darkness. 
Remember!   that   love   itself   in   it3   highest 


76  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

earthly  bearing,  as  the  ground  of  the  marriage 
union,  becomes  love,  not  by  ''elective  affmities'*' 
alone,  but  by  an  inward  fiat  of  the  will,  by  a 
completing  and  sealing  act  of  moral  election,  and 
can  lay  claim  to  permanence  only  under  the  form 
of  duty. 

Emerson.  Though  the  stuff  of  tragedy  and  of 
romances  is  in  a  moral  union  of  two 
superior  persons,  whose  confidence  in  each  other 
for  long  years,  in  sight  and  out  of  sight,  and 
against  all  appearances,  is  at  last  justified  by  vic- 
torious proof  of  probity  to  gods  and  men,  caus- 
ing joyful  emotions,  tears  and  glory:  though 
there  be  for  heroes  this  moral  union,  yet  they 
too,  are  as  far  off  as  ever  from  intellectual  union. 
Such  is  the  tragic  necessity  which  strict  science 
finds  underneath  our  domestic  life,  insensibly 
driving  each  adult  soul  as  with  whips  into  the 
desert.  Therefore  I  am  greatly  interested  in  the 
proposal  of  Lycidas  for  a  Greater  Family,  as  it 
affords  opportunity  for  intellectual  union  accord- 
ing to  our  growing  needs,  while  the  Minor 
Family  based  on  moral  union  provides  for  social 
stability. 

Lycidas.    I  would  have  a  woman  marry,  not  be- 
cause it  is  the  only  thing  that  offers, 
but  because  a  magnificence  sweeps  by,  in  whose 


Celestial  Conferences   on  Love  y*j 

glorious  sun  her  stars  faint  and  fade.  Her  soul 
shall  be  filled  and  fired  with  heavenly  radiance. 
All  her  dross  shall  be  consumed  and  all  her  gold 
refined.  She  shall  go  to  the  marriage  feast  as 
Zenobia  went  to  Rome,  crowned  with  flowers, 
but  bound  with  golden  chains,  a  captive,  and  the 
banner  over  her  shall  be  love.  I  would  have  her 
go  obedient,  not  to  the  requirements  of  a  false 
materialism,  naming  itself  with  the  names  of 
morality  and  womanhood,  but  to  the  unerring 
instincts  of  her  own  nature.  She  shall  not  fly  to 
the  only  refuge  from  the  vacuum  and  despair  of 
life;  but  her  great  heart,  and  her  strong  hands 
shall  be  wrenched  from  their  bent,  by  the  mys- 
terious force  of  an  irresistible  magnetism.  When 
you  have  character  that  can  so  command,  a  love 
that  can  so  control,  you  have  set  up  on  earth 
the  pillars  of  heaven,  and  redemption  draweth 
nigh.    Her  motto  should  be 

Who  weds  me,  at  least  with  equal  pace 
Sometimes  must  move  with  me  at  my  being's  height; 
To  follow  him  to  his  more  glorious  place. 
His  purer  atmosphere,  would  be  keen  delight. 

Beatrice. 

And  yet  because  thou  overcamest  so, 
Because  thou  art  more  noble  and  like  a  king, 
Thou  canst  prevail  against  my  fears  and  fling 
Thy  purple  round  me,  till  my  heart  shall  grow 


7S  C-elestial    Conferences   on   Love 

To  close  against  thine  heart,  henceforth  to  know 

How  it  shook  when  alone.     Why  conquering 

May  prove  as  lordly  and  complete  a  thing 

In  lifting  upwards  as  in  crushing  low. 

And  a  soldier  struck  down  by  a  sword 

May  cry,  "My  strife  ends  here"  and  sink  to  earth, 

Even  so,  Beloved,  I  at  last  record 

Here  ends  my  doubt  1     If  thou  invite  me  forth 

I  rise  above  abasement  at  the  word, — 

Make  thy  love  larger  to  enlarge  my  worth. 

1  recognize  the  laws  of  man  and  woman's  love, 
but  this  battle  of  woman's  love  with  duty  is 
harder  than  that  of  man's,  for  there  is  much  truth 
in  the  old  saying: 

Man's  love  is  of  man  a  thing  apart, 
'Tis  woman's  whole  existence. 

Lycidas.    True,  Beatrice.    But  let  her  be  stead- 
fast, and  whatever  her  weary  waiting 
and  watching,  let  her  not  break  the  golden  bar- 
riers of  heaven  which  lie  about  her. 

It  was  the  rampart  of  God's  house 

That   she   was   standing  on; 
By  God  built  over  the  sheer  depths 

The  which  is  space  begun; 
So  high  that  looking  downward  thence 

She  could  scarce  see  the  sun. 

And  thus  she  spoke: 

When  round  his  head  the  aureole  clings 

And  he  is  clothed  in  white 
I'll  take  his  hand  and  go  with  him 

To  the  deep  wells  of  light; 
As  unto  a  spring  we  will  step  down 

And  bathe  in  God's  sight. 


Celestial    Conferences   on   Love  79 

Emerson.  That  brings  another  defect  of  your 
society  into  view, — its  lack  of  flu- 
idity, the  extreme  difficulty  of  making  a  large 
acquaintance  and  finding  a  counterpart.  You 
are  not  so  much  in  need  of  men's  clubs  and 
women's  clubs,  as  family  clubs,  where  your 
young  people  can  meet  and  entertain  under  the 
best  conditions.  Again  perhaps,  some  of  these 
young  women  are  too  ideal,  too  great  dreamers, 
and  are  not  really  fitted  under  the  actual  condi- 
tions of  human  life  to  give  as  much  as  they 
demand. 

Lycidas.  Something  in  the  way  of  Family 
Clubs  has  been  accomplished  by  the 
co-operative  societies  of  Belgium,  which  have 
provided  magnificent  club  houses,  which  provide 
for  the  material  and  social  needs  of  their  mem- 
bers. Such  clubs  would  provide  an  excellent 
training  in  community  life.  But  intellectual  and 
cultured  people  need  more  select  and  intimate 
society. 

Beatrice.  That  is  all  very  fine,  but  there  are 
thousands  of  women  who  are  crying: 
Why  have  I  been  born  with  all  these  warm  aflFec- 
tions,  these  ardent  longings  for  what  is  good,  if 
they  lead  only  to  sorrow  and  disappointment  ?  I 


8o  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

would  love  some  one,  love  him  once  and  forever 
— devote  myself  to  him  alone — live  for  him,  die 
for  him — exist  alone  for  him!  But  alas!  in  all 
this  world  there  is  none  to  love  me  as  I  would  be 
loved — none  whom  I  may  love  as  1  am  capable  of 
loving!  How  empty,  how  desolate  the  world 
seems  about  me!  Why  has  heaven  given  me 
these  affections,  only  to  fail  and  fade  ? 

Amial.  Life  indeed  is  most  always  a  compro- 
mise between  common  sense  and  the 
ideal, — the  one  abating  nothing  of  its  demands, 
and  the  other  accommodating  itself  to  what  is 
practical  and  real.  But  marriage  by  common 
sense ! — arrived  at  by  a  bargain !  Can  it  be  any- 
thing but  a  profanation?  On  the  other  hand  is 
it  not  a  vicious  ideal  which  hinders  life  from 
completing  itself  and  destroys  the  family  in  the 
germ?  Is  there  not  too  much  pride,  Lycidas,  in 
the  ideal  you  have  been  holding  up, — pride 
which  will  not  accept  the  common  destiny?  My 
pride  found  its  abasement.  Every  dollar  I  owned 
mocked  me  every  hour  with  the  thought  of  the 
woman  on  whom  my  happiness  would  have  been 
to  have  lavished  it.  But  my  excessive  caution 
led  me  to  be  a  bachelor  rather  than  a  man. 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  8i 

Lycidas.  Perhaps  you  are  right,  perhaps  this  is 
another  case  where  both  men  and 
women  should  apply  the  doctrine  of  the  Golden 
Mean.  But  how  can  one  compromise  with  the 
Law  of  Counterparts,  which  determines  the 
ratio  of  intellect  and  feeling,  of  masculinity  and 
femininity,  as  well  as  of  magnetic  equilibrium;  of 
the  men  and  women  that  are  adapted  to  each 
other.  All  of  these  elements  are  in  each,  some 
intellect,  some  maleness  in  the  woman  and  some 
feeling  and  some  femaleness  in  the  man,  but  no 
matter  what  their  amount,  those  that  are  coun- 
terparts should  jointly  equal  one  absolute  male 
and  one  absolute  female.  Thus  it  comes  about 
that  nature  has  implanted  an  attraction  for  each 
other  in  those  who  are  opposite  and  those  who 
are  similar  in  maleness  and  femaleness.  Thus 
extremely  feminine  women  and  extremely  mas- 
culine men,  as  well  as  the  new  woman  and  the 
feminine  man, — who  are  very  similar,  attract 
each  other.  But  these  are  abnormal  types.  These 
abnormals  cannot  expect  the  happiness  of  the 
counterpart  normals,  which  are  intermediate,  but 
this  attraction  of  extremes  tends  to  restore  the 
type  in  the  next  generation.  That  nature  thus 
oscillates  about  a  type  indicates  that  the  New 
Woman  and  feminine  man  are  diverging  from 
the  plan  marked  out  by  nature.    It  would  be 


82 


Celestial   Conferences   on  Love 


unnecessary  to  mention  this  law,  except  for  the 
fact  in  our  artificial  life  many  influences  over- 
come it,  e.  g.,  wealth  and  social  position.  The 
perfect  counterpart,  the  other  half  of  an  original 
single  soul  is  a  dream,  and  we  must  face  the  fact 
that  in  practical  life  we  must  do  the  best  we  can. 
Still  with  full  knowledge  of  the  law  we  ought  to 
be  able  to  do  better  than  we  have  been  doing. 


Mitj^^^W^^^W^kti^^^^  ^j¥(tj' 


2Ki2fe^^Z£r^Z?l^fe!2fei£  fei£fe! 


Spiritual  Evolution  Our 
Supreme  Duty 

HOW  THE    LAW  OF  COUNTERPARTS 
IS  RELATED  THERETO 

Beatrice. 

^^  HIS  law  of  counterparts  is  not  very  clear  to 

iMl       nie.     You  promised  that  after  we  were  mar- 

^■^       ried  you  would  explain  the  mystic  relations 

of  man  and  woman  and  your  own  esoteric  doctrine. 

Lycidas.  The  philosophy  of  sex  has -already  in  some 
measure  been  developed  in  these  confer- 
ences, but  the  Law  of  Counterparts  indicates  that 
Nature  has  provided  a  bond  far  stronger  than  if  she 
had  made  man  merely  a  man  and  woman  merely  a 
woman. 

Beatrice.    Well!   I  should  like  to  know  what  else 
they  are  than  just  men  and  just  women. 

Lycidas.     Did    you    not    know    that    a    man    is    part 
woman,  and   a  woman  part  man?      The 
evolution  of  sex  is  a  long  story,  but  I  will  sketch  the 
subject  briefly. 

83 


84  Celestial   Conferences   on  Love 

Nature  seldom  does  things  suddenly.  When  she 
has  an  end  to  attain,  she  attains  it  by  a  method  of 
gradual  approach.  As  Bacon  said,  Nature  is  very 
subtle  and  leaves  no  seam.  So  to  understand  the 
sex  relation  of  man  and  woman,  we  must  study  its 
beginnings  in  plants,  follow  it  through  the  animal 
kingdom,  and  the  history  of  mankind.  So  you  see 
the  sex  arrangement  has  been  put  to  a  long  test,  and 
only  adopted  in  the  human  kingdom  after  a  thorough 
demonstration  of  its  worth. 

Many  plants  can  be  propagated  by  slips,  that  is 
asexually.  In  addition  to  this  method  the  fern  is 
propagated  by  an  alternation  of  the  sexual  and  asexual 
methods.  On  the  under  side  of  the  frond  you  will 
find  many  little  seeds  or  spores;  from  one  of  these  there 
will  grow  a  little  plantlet  called  the  prothallus,  which 
very  few  people  have  ever  seen.  Now,  one  portion  of 
this  prothallus  is  male  and  another  portion  female. 
The  seed  from  the  male  portion  of  one  falling  off  and 
floating  about  meets  the  seed  from  the  female  portion 
of  another;  they  become  united,  and  as  a  result  of 
their  union  a  new  fern  begins  to  grow.  Many  plants, 
however,  are  self-fertilizing;  the  male  and  female  ele- 
ments within  the  same  flower  are  united  and  pro- 
duce seed  from  which  new  plants  will  grow.  Such 
seed  I  understand  tend  to  vary  greatly,  and  to  revert 
back, — which  is  called  atavism.  Hence  those  who 
wish  to  continue  improved  varieties,  as,  for  example, 
the  oranee,  take  a  bud  from  the  bark  of  the  desired 
kind,  and  graft  it  into  the  bark  of  a  young  seed- 
ling of  a  primitive  and  vigorous  type.  But  quite  a 
few  plants  are  not  self-fertilizing,  as,  for  example,  the 
fig  and  date.  There  are  male  and  female  date  and 
fig  trees  just  as  there  are  men  and  women.     In  na- 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  85 

ture  there  are  about  an  equal  number  of  each  kind 
of  tree,  but  the  growers  of  the  date,  for  example,  find 
it  advantageous  to  cultivate  polygamous  families,  with 
only  about  two  males  to  an  acre  on  which  there  are 
planted  about  fifty  female  trees.  To  make  sure  of 
pollination,  a  beautiful  spray  of  the  male  blossoms 
is  plucked  and  tied  into  a  cluster  of  the  female  blos- 
soms, and  while  in  this  loving  embrace  the  zephyrs 
distribute  the  sweet-scented  pollen  among  the  other 
flowers.  Now  here  is  an  interesting  fact, — the  female 
tree  would  produce  even  more  fruit  without  this  pol- 
lination, but  it  would  be  seedless  and  of  such  a  poor 
quality  as  to  be  valueless.  Why  the  date  requires 
this  method  any  more  than  the  apple,  I  am  unable 
to  explain,  unless  it  is  that  we  are  here  at  the  transi- 
tion stage  where  nature  finds  it  necessary  to  adopt 
this  method  to  preserve  vigor  in  the  individuals. 

In  the  animal  kingdom  there  is  a  similar  develop- 
ment. Among  the  unicellular  animals  we  find  propa- 
gation by  division  of  the  cell  into  two  or  more  parts, 
which  grow  and  again  divide,  and  thus  have  an  im- 
mortal life  unless  they  meet  with  some  accident.  But 
this  bodily  immortality  is  precluded  among  multi- 
cellular animals,  for  the  reason  that  in  order  to  live 
the  higher  and  more  complex  life,  a  division  of  labor 
among  cells  is  necessary,  and  hence  we  ha\e  various 
organs,  body  (or  somatic)  cells  and  germ  cells.  Now 
the  body  cells  tend  to  become  stationary  and  thus 
accumulate  the  decay  of  the  metabolic  process,  which 
causes  a  hardening.  Butjthis_as,  no  reason  why^^e 
should  not  live  Jo^^be_a_£DJifile  of  hunHred  years  old, 
if  we  take^pfoper  care  of  ourselves,  that  is  if  we  are 
temperate,  active  and  hygenic,  and  have  married  a 
suitable  counterpart  who  is  a  true  tonic  to  soul  and 
body. 


86  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

Returning  to  the  thread  of  my  story,  a  little  higher 
in  the  animal  scale,  propagation  takes  place  by  small 
buds  instead  of  a  large  division,  which  is  an  ap- 
proximation to  the  germ  cell.  But  before  the  sex 
arrangement  is  fully  adopted,  we  find  an  alternation 
of  the  sexual  and  asexual  methods  similar  to  that 
found  in  the  fern. 

There  is  parthenogenesis,  or  so-called  virgin  birth, 
which  may  continue  for  many  generations,  with  in- 
creasing degeneration  of  the  individuals.  But  the 
value  of  sex  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  this  degenera- 
tion may  be  stopped  by  a  return  to  conjugation.  The 
latest  experiments  have  shown,  however,  that  this 
rejuvenescence  does  not  take  place  except  between 
counterparts,  or  individuals  who  are  suitably  polar, 
which  causes  a  stimulation  of  the  metabolic  activities. 
Among  the  bees  we  have  virgin  birth,  the  males  or 
drones  coming  from  unfertilized  eggs.  Queens,  how- 
ever, come  from  fertilized  eggs. 

I  presume  you  know  that  the  metabolic  activities 
of  the  cell  depend  upon  a  certain  rhythm  or  see-saw 
between  the  anabolic  or  constructive  movement  and 
the  katabolic  or  destructive  movement.  Of  course, 
the  anabolic  movement  predominates  in  both  man 
and  woman  or  we  would  not  live ;  but  it  predominates 
in  a  much  greater  degree  in  woman,  causing  her  to 
live  in  a  state  of  periodical  overflow  ,so  as  to  be  pre- 
pared for  reproduction  up  to  the  period  of  menopause. 
In  man,  however,  the  margin  between  the  two  move- 
ments being  less,  he  is  able  to  give  out  more  energy 
in  the  form  of  work  for  the  benefit  of  society.  Here 
is  the  physiological  reason  why  woman  should  not 
undertakeThe  same  career  as  man,  as  it  will  either 
disorganize  her  system,  or  cause  Nature  to  try  and 


Celestial  Conferences    on   Love  Zy 

adapt  herself  to  the  situation  by  attempting  the  male 
swing  in  her  metabolic  activities,  which  results  in 
the  masculination  of  woman.  Thus  the  New  Woman 
in  adopting  the  career  and  environment  of  man  is 
causing  a  fundamental  change  in  the  plans  of  nature, 
the  profound  wisdom  of  which  I  will  exhibit  to  you. 

We  can  readily  see  that  it  would  not  do  for  human 
beings  to  reproduce  themselves  like  plants  by  cutting 
off  slips, — fingers  or  toes,  and  planting  them ;  nor  by 
virgin  birth ;  for  under  the  stress  of  life  abnormal  in- 
dividuals would  be  developed  and  there  would  be  no 
way  of  eliminating  them  except  by  putting  them  to 
death.  Now  it  is  not  necessary  to  put  militant  suf- 
fragettes or  other  freaks  to  death  in  order  to  prevent 
their  continuance,  because  there  is  a  tendency  im- 
planted in  the  nature  of  human  beings  that  they  marry 
their  counterpart,  not  in  the  old  sense  that  the  tall 
marry  the  short  and  the  dark  the  light,  but  that 
opposites  and  similars  in  sex  characters  shall  attract 
each  other  so  as  to  preserve  a  certain  golden  mean 
or  type.  Thus  the  militant  is  attracted  by  that  other 
useless  freak  the  "sissy  man"  and  the  resulting  hybrid 
is  a  normal  individual. 

I  spoke  a  moment  ago  of  the  bisexual  or  self-fertil- 
izing characters  of  certain  flowers.  Well,  this  also 
occurs  normally  in  the  animal  kingdom  up  to  the  very 
threshold  of  the  vertebrates,  and  abnormally  among 
higher  forms ;  and  it  is  believed  to  be  an  embryonic 
stage  in  the  development  of  all  higher  individuals. 
Indications  of  this  race  history  are  seen  in  every  indi- 
vidual, in  whom  there  is  simply  a  predominance  of  one 
sex  over  the  over.  When  it  is  considered  that  the 
new  individual  arises  from  the  union  of  half  a  male 
cell  and  half  a  female  cell,  which  continues  to  divide 


88  Celestial   Conferences   on  Love 

and  sub-divide  to  form  the  new  body,  which  is  thus  \ 
equally  male  and  female,  you  will  not  wonder  that 
over  five  hundred  theories  have  been  advanced  to 
account  for  the  preponderance  of  one  sex  over  the 
other  in  a  given  individual.  But  the  best  theory,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  that  of  an  initial  magnetic  prepotence 
determining  either  a  greater  anabolic  or  katabolic 
movement  in  the  metabolism  of  the  cell. 

In  saying  that  one-half  each  of  a  male  and  female 
cell  go  to  form  the  new  being,  I  mean  that  one-half 
of  the  chromosomes  or  determining  elements  in  each 
cell  are  extruded  before  union.  It  is  the  chromosomes 
that  are  supposed  to  transmit  the  hereditary  charac- 
ters, and  while  there  are  not  as  many  as  there  are 
characters,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  several 
characters  are  linked  in  one  chromosome.  It  begins 
to  look  as  though  it  would  be  important  for  each 
individual  to  have  an  expert  record  made  of  his  char- 
acters, in  order  that  when  this  matter  is  more  fully 
understood,  a  study  of  this  data  for  several  generations 
back  will  enable  one  to  tell  what  characters  to  combine 
in  order  to  produce  a  desired  type  of  individual  in  ac- 
cordance with  Mendelian  principles. 

But  whatever  the  cause  for  the  relative  preponder- 
ance of  one  sex  over  the  other  in  a  given  individual, 
you  have  only  to  look  about  you  to  see  the  fact  that 
some  men  are  so  masculine  as  to  show  only  slight 
traces  of  feminine  secondary  sex-characters, — they  arc 
hard  and  brutal.  You  will  also  see  some  women  so 
feminine  as  to  show  hardly  any  trace  of  masculinity, — 
they  are  soft  and  without  spirit,  You  will  find  men 
and  women  in  whom  there  is  an  approximate  equality 
of  male  and  femaleness.  The  man  is  a  "sissv"  and 
the  woman  prides  herself  on  being  a  "New  Woman" 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  89 

or  a  "militant."  Illustrations  of  such  new  women 
are  George  Eliot,  George  Sand,  Rosa  Bonheur  and 
Dr.  Mary  Walker.  The  first  two  took  men's  names, 
and  all  but  the  first  wore  pants.  George  Sand  was 
in  love  with  Chopin  and  Musset — particularly  femi- 
nine men. 

Between  the  extreme  types  above  mentioned  there 
is  a  type  which  may  be  regarded  as  normal,  because 
nature  seeks  to  maintain  it  if  given  a  reasonable 
chance, — that  is  if  no  attempt  is  made  to  oppose  nat- 
ural instincts.  A  man  of  this  type  will  possess  about 
25-35  per  cent,  of  the  woman's  characteristics,  both 
physical  and  mental.  The  woman  will  possess  a  like 
amount  of  the  man's  characters,  which  are  maleness 
and  intellect.  Sex  is  as  significant  a  feature  of  mind 
as  of  body.  In  woman  the  distinctive  character  is 
feeling;  in  man,  intellect.  There  is  usually  a  definite 
correlation  between  the  mind  and  body ;  but  of  course 
there  is  a  transition  stage  in  which  the  mind  moves 
faster  than  the  body.  Thus  we  may  see  a  woman 
with  a  distinctively  feminine  body  with  a  militant 
mind ;  if  she  lives  long  enough  and  takes  up  masculine 
activities  and  environment,  she  will  undoubtedly  de- 
velop masculine  characteristics  such  as  a  beard  and 
flat  chest  and  narrow  hips.  Sargent's  studies  of  ath- 
letic girls  are  interesting  in  this  respect. 

It  is  in  this  region  of  the  Spiritual  Life  high  above 
sex  diflFerences  that  it  is  possible  for  man  and  woman 
to  become  truly  united.  It  is  a  grand  adventure, 
starting  ecstasy  of  love  to  so  practice  love  through 
life  that  pure  spirits  become  united  in  the  love  of  God. 

With  Swedenborg,  Emerson,  Balzac  and  many 
others,  I  hold  that  sex  differences  do  not  reach  the 
highest  regions  of  the  soul, — the  conscience, — the  Spir- 


90  Celestial   Conferences   on  Love 

itual  Life.  The  purpose  of  sex  has  been  to  develop 
this  Higher  Life  to  the  point  where  sex-differences 
gradually  disappear.  This  is  not  to  be  accomplished 
by  the  old  doctrines  of  the  "mortification  of  the  flesh," 
by  the  passiveness  of  "Nirvana,"  but  by  the  union  of 
flesh  and  spirit  in  active  loving  and  doing.  It  is  a 
great  adventure  beginning  with  the  ecstasy  of  love, 
to  study  and  practice  the  mysteries  of  love  through 
life  to  become  united  as  Pure  Spirits,  and  join  the 
Society  of  Spirits  in  the  love  of  God. 

Beatrice.     Should  not  a  woman  seek  to  have  as  great 
an  intellect  as  man? 

Lycidas.  However  great  her  intellect,  it  should  never 
exceed  one-third  of  her  mentality ;  two- 
thirds  should  be  given  over  to  those  faculties  which 
come  under  the  general  head  of  feeling  or  emotion. 
She  may,  indeed,  have  an  intellect  which  both  in  ca- 
pacity and  training  exceed  that  of  many  men ;  but 
such  men  would  not  make  suitable  husbands.  As 
Amiel  has  pointed  out,  she  should  marry  a  man  with 
a  still  greater  intellect  than  hers,  or  she  will  never 
be  happy.   w'^^/vG- 

Beatrice.     Should  not  a  woman's  intuitions  be  given 
an  equal  share  in  determining  the  course 
of  life? 

Lycidas.  They  should  certainly  be  given  due  weight, 
and  they  have  an  especial  part  to  play  in 
the  aesthetic  and  spiritual  life,  subjects  which  I  hope 
to  discuss  with  the  spirits  later.  You  know  what 
Bergson  says.     But  the  essential  quality  of  the  in- 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  91 

tellect  is  that  of  unbiased  judgment,  although  I  must 
confess  that  in  many  men  there  developes  an  ar- 
terio-schlerosis  of  the  intellect.  In  general,  however, 
the  intellect  is  a  safer  guide  than  the  emotional  im- 
pulses. The  intellect  has  been  developed  out  of  the 
feelings  in  the  struggle  for  existence  to  meet  this 
need.  The  intellect  is  like  the  apical  bud  of  the  plant 
which  has  been  developed  to  meet  the  conditions  of 
life  and  push  its  way  through  the  hard  earth.  As 
the  sense  of  sight  and  hearing  have  developed  out  of 
the  general  feeling  or  touch  sense,  so  the  intellect  has 
been  developed  out  of  the  general  feeling  or  emotional 
nature  as  a  check  to  impulse,  the  Will  being  simply 
the  concentrated  result  embodied  in  action  that  fol- 
lows the  ratiocinative  process.  The  Will  is  a  judg- 
ment impregnated  with  impulse. 

Returning  to  my  explanation,  we  have  found  that 
the  best  type  of  man  is  one  whose  mind  and  body 
is  about  one-third  woman,  that  is  governed  by  that 
type  of  activity  to  the  extent  of  one-third  and 
two-thirds  male  activity.  The  best  type  of  woman 
is  in  brief  one-third  man  and  two-thirds  woman.  Per- 
haps I  can  illustrate  this  by  use  of  formulas,  letting 
M  represent  maleness  of  both  body  and  mind,  and 
F  femaleness. 

Now  the  extreme  masculine  man  might  be  repre- 
sented by  90%  M  -\-  10%  F,  and  the  extremely  feminine 
woman  by  90%  F  -f-  10%  M.  Now,  don't  you  see  that 
these  two  would  have  very  little  of  the  nature  of  the 
other  in  common?  Their  lives  would  be  far  apart,  and 
yet  nature  makes  them  natural  counterparts  in  order 
that  the  next  generation  may  be  brought  to  a  normal 
or  intermediate  type.  The  general  law  is  that  the  sum 
of  the  male  and  female  characters  in  two  individuals 


92  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

shall  jointly  make  two  complete  male  and  female 
individuals,  thus:  Man  (90%  M  +  10%  F)  plus  Woman 
(90%  F  -f  10%  M)=2. 

The  same  want  of  a  bond  of  union  is  manifest  in 
formula  for  the  New  Woman  and  the  "sissy"  man  who 
are  likewise  counterparts,  thus:  Man  (55%  M  +  45% 
F)  plus  Woman  (55%  F  +  45%  M)=2. 

Now,  I  want  to  call  your  particular  attention  to  the 
formula  for  the  normal  type  which  lies  between  these 
two.  These  types  are  markedly  male  and  female,  ex- 
ceeding the  "sissy"  and  the  "militant"  on  the  one  hand, 
and  yet  not  so  extreme  as  the  first  types  mentioned. 
They  have,  however,  sufficient  of  the  characters  of  the 
opposite  sex  to  enable  them  to  thoroughly  understand 
each  other,  to  have  a  wide  ransre  for  contact  of  common 
interests,  and  yet  sufficiently  different  to  be  attractive. 

Man  (70%  M  -f  30%  F)  plus  Woman  (70%  F  + 
30%  M)—2. 

Do  you  not  see  the  supreme  wisdom  of  nature  in  at- 
tempting to  preserve  this  type  which  makes  a  family 
bond  of  the  most  powerful  kind,  as  against  the  fool- 
ishness of  the  New  Woman  who  is  attempting  to  weaken 
this  bond  and  destroy  the  family?  A  10  to  15  per  cent, 
increase  of  masculinity  in  woman  will  do  it.  In  de- 
stroying this  type  you  not  only  destroy  the  family  bond, 
but  also  that  wise  division  of  labor  in  the  industrial  field, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  more  important  spiritual  realm. 

Beatrice.  Rose  Mayreder,  in  her  "Survey  of  the 
Woman  Problem,"  says  that  "the  distin- 
guishing mark  of  synthetic  people  (your  normal  type) 
is  that  they  have  an  outlook  over  the  barriers  of  sex, 
a  power  of  sweeping  away  the  bonds  entailed  by  sexu- 
ality, enabling  them  to  reach  a  mental  sphere  common 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  93 

to  both  sexes  of  the  human  species.  The  wider  the 
sphere  the  more  easily  will  the  process  of  amalgama- 
tion be  carried  out,  the  more  pertect  and  extensive  will 
it  be.  Since  sex  does  not  connote  for  synthetic  people 
an  entirely  different  sort  of  existence,  but  only  a  dif- 
ferent form  of  being,  they  are  able,  apart  from  sexual 
affairs,  to  enjoy  a  common  existence.  Thus  they  raise 
themselves  to  a  universality  of  perception  which  is  de- 
nied to  the  acratic  (your  extreme  type.)  Their  nature 
acquires  an  element  of  freedom  which  enables  individuals 
of  even  moderate  talents  to  have  a  Hberal  and  intelli- 
gent understanding  of  the  other  sex,  while  those  who 
are  not  synthetic  in  nature  cannot  break  through  the 
barriers  of  sex,  even  though  their  minds  may  be  of  the 
most  emancipated  type." 

Lycidas.  But  with  the  solution  of  the  above  problem 
our  difficulties  are  not  at  an  end.  Nature  cer- 
tainly has  set  before  us  a  great  game,  which  taxes  all 
our  resources.  Even  if  one  could  always  find  an  ideal 
counterpart,  the  magnetic  attraction  which  drew  them 
together  tends  to  become  neutral,  just  as  the  ion  loses 
its  energy  when  it  finds  its  pole.  What  is  more  tragic 
than  where  one  of  a  loving  and  mentally  adapted  pair 
is  magnetically  deficient,  and  like  the  vampire  sucks  all 
the  physical  and  spiritual  vitality  from  the  loved  one, 
leading  to  slow  death,  vampirization  or  demagnetization. 
The  story  of  Bluebeard  probably  symbolizes  something 
of  this  sort,  and  in  almost  every  community  a  Bluebeard 
or  Bluewoman  can  be  pointed  out  who  has  followed 
three  to  seven  wives  or  husbands  to  the  grave  within 
a  few  years, — because  of  a  lack  of  magnetic  balance. 
Divorce  and  intelligent  choice  are  of  course  the  only 
corrective.     This  is  a  subject  that  should  receive  careful 


94  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

investigation  in  order  to  understand  the  conditions  under 
which  one  robs,  bestows  or  becomes  neutral  with  re- 
spect to  the  vital  energy  of  another.  This  is  undoubt- 
edly one  of  the  most  fruitful  causes  of  divorce,  for  as 
soon  as  the  magnetic  balance  is  destroyed  all  sorts  of 
little  troubles  become  big.  As  long  as  the  powerful  at- 
traction and  mutual  stimulus  remain,  small  troubles 
become  very  small  indeed.  This  is  the  reason  why  a 
man  and  woman  can  get  along  together  and  constitute 
a  family  while  two  men,  or  a  man  and  a  suffragette, 
cannot. 

Again,  on  the  mental  plane,  where  the  relations  of 
capacities  are  ideal,  the  marriage  may  have  taken  place 
too  late  in  life,  or  the  parties  have  made  no  effort  to 
develop  common  interests,  and  have  therefore  drifted 
apart.  Through  the  present  state  of  opinion  with  re- 
spect to  marriage,  whereby  friendships  are  not  permitted 
with  other  men  and  women,  except  of  a  most  superficial 
character,  the  individual  is  robbed  of  that  variety  needed 
for  the  stimulation  and  growth  of  his  or  her  intellectual 
and  spiritual  life.  We  seem  to  have  arrived  at  an 
impasse;  it  is  only  the  few  that  find  the  path  leading 
to  spiritual  development  and  culture ;  for  the  many  it  is 
a  question  whether  it  is  their  duty  to  continue  in  a  mar- 
riage which  is  only  a  hollow  symbol  of  love,  or  throw 
society  into  a  turmoil  by  dissolving  every  marriage  that 
fails  of  happiness.     Either  alternative  seems  intolerable. 

Elinerson.  In  the  spiritual  world  we  change  sexes 
every  moment.  You  love  the  worth  in  me, 
then  I  am  your  husband;  but  it  is  not  me  but  the  worth 
that  fixes  the  love;  and  that  worth  is  but  a  drop  in  the 
ocean  of  worth  that  is  beyond  me.  Meantime  I  adore 
the  greater  worth  in  another,  and  I  am  his  wife.     He 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  95 

aspires  to  the  higher  worth  in  another  spirit  and  is  wife 
or  receiver  of  that  influence. 

Lycidas.  But  in  this  world  we  are  hampered  by  ma- 
terial bodies  and  their  material  needs,  and 
the  problem  is  to  organize  society  in  such  a  form  that 
one  may  always  have  their  soul-mate  and  yet  protect 
the  interests  of  all  concerned. 

Beatrice.     This  is  a  matter  that  has  been  troubling  me 

ever  since  Emerson  stated  the  Law  of  Love 

at  the  beginning  of  our  conference.     Must  Lycidas  and 

I  drift  away  from  each  other  if  we  continue  to  develop? 

Emerson.  The  Law  of  Worth  is  not  identical  with 
intellectual  and  aesthetic  culture  of  which 
Lycidas  has  been  speaking,  for  it  includes  moral 
worth  as  well.  Where  the  intellectual  bond  may  be- 
come weak,  the  habits  of  joint  labor,  the  memory  of 
many  griefs  divided  and  the  many  joys  doubled  by  being 
shared  together,  establishes  a  bond  of  moral  worth  and 
makes  many  difficulties  endurable;  but  of  course  life 
lacks  a  great  deal  of  a  full  realization.  The  only  way 
in  which  progressive  souls  can  avoid  divorce  is  by  join- 
ing the  Law  of  Mutual  Progress  with  the  Law  of  Love. 
When  this  is  impossible  there  should  be  readjustment 
or  else  the  whole  purpose  of  life  is  almost  certain  to  be 
defeated,  for  the  love  of  the  sexes  is  the  sole  road 
(exceptions  only  apparent)  by  which  salvation  of  the 
spirit  is  to  be  achieved. 

Beatrice.     It  is  this  illusion  of  Mutual  Progress  that 
has  lured  lovers  to  an  uncertain  and  disas- 
trous fate,  ever  since  the  dawn  of  Romantic  Love  in  the 


96  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

days  of  Dante  and  Petrarch.  I  confess  I  am  still  labor- 
ing under  this  illusion,  although  I  have  only  to  look 
about  to  see  how  few  have  achieved  this  monogamic 
ideal.  Therefore  it  would  seem  as  if  the  Greater  Family 
plan  which  Lycidas  mentioned  were  adopted,  it  would 
relieve  some  of  the  conflict  between  love  and  duty.  If, 
after  marriage,  there  is  no  special  motive  for  intellectual 
development,  the  parties  to  the  marriage  soon  exhaust 
each  other  and  the  result  is  mental  and  spiritual  pov- 
erty. If  one  goes  outside  of  marriage  for  intellectual 
stimulus  there  is  scandal,  but  in  the  Greater  Family  with 
proper  safeguards  and  responsibilities  all  this  is  avoided. 

Lycidas.  I  think  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  finding 
of  a  soul-mate  or  true  counterpart  in  the 
present  order  of  society  is  exceptional,  and  that  the 
Greater  Family  would  be  a  great  boon  for  those  whose 
culture  has  advanced  beyond  the  gossip  stage.  In  fact, 
I  see  no  reason  why  this  association  of  cultured  people 
should  not  lead  to  the  revival  of  the  French  salon,  and 
give  women  an  opportunity  to  develop  into  Madame  de 
Staels. 

With  the  rapid  growth  of  urban  population,  and  the 
tendency  to  live  in  large  flats,  I  can  see  no  reason  why 
a  dozen  families  could  not  incorporate  and  build  a  large 
apartment  house,  each  family  having  its  own  flat,  and 
in  addition  thereto  large  parlors,  library,  dining  room 
and  kitchen.  The  minor  meals  ipight  be  served  in  the 
rooms  of  the  minor  families,  preserving  the  family  life ; 
while  the  dinner  could  be  served  in  the  common  dining 
room,  promoting  the  social  life.  This  work  could  be 
looked  after  by  such  members  as  cared  to  do  it,  which 
would  afford  considerable  relief  for  those  having  in- 
terests in  other  directions. 


Celestial   Conferences    on   Love  97 

Beatrice*  That  would  be  splendid.  The  home  should 
be  the  center  of  all  woman's  activities ;  with 
few  exceptions  her  activities  should  be  subordinate  to  the 
home.  A  complementary  institution  would  be  educa- 
tional and  industrial  schools,  where  the  art  crafts  should 
not  only  be  taught,  but  an  opportunity  afforded  for 
women  to  put  in  their  spare  time  producing  articles  for 
sale.  A  woman  demands  change,  and  is  not  so  well 
fitted  for  the  minute  division  of  labor  and  its  monotonous 
tasks.  I  see  no  reason  why  all  the  art  work  of  our 
factories  could  not  be  produced  by  women  in  their 
leisure  hours.  Certainly  with  a  powerful  society  back- 
ing the  movement  a  market  could  be  established  even 
if  prices  were  a  little  higher.  Thus  an  outlet  could  be 
found  for  her  restlessness  which  now  manifests  itself 
in  fads  and  follies,  frivolity  and  fanaticism.  But  on  the 
other  hand  I  am  afraid  that  when  one  found  their  coun- 
terpart in  another's  husband  or  wife  there  would  be  a 
good  deal  of  jealousy. 

Lycidas.  It  would  certainly  put  everyone  on  their 
mettle.  If  a  man  had  a  fine  wife,  he  would 
have  to  make  himself  attractive  if  he  expected  to  retain 
her,  and  vice  versa.  As  for  jealousy,  it  would  have  to 
be  one  of  the  agreements  at  the  beginning  that  it  should 
be  barred.  I  do  not  think  it  would  take  long  for  cul- 
tured people  to  adapt  themselves  to  this  mode  of  life. 
Certainly  no  one  would  expect  that  all  difficulties  would 
disappear;  human  nature  is  a  difficult  proposition. 

You  spoke  of  the  need  of  a  powerful  society  to  back 
your  industrial  movement.  This  suggests  that  several 
of  the  Greater  Families  in  a  city,  and  in  cities  through 
the  country  could  form  themselves  into  an  order.  This 
order   would   become   a   powerful   aristocracy, — a   true 


98  Celestial    Conferences    on   Love 

aristocracy  based  on  true  worth.  It  would  come  to 
have  a  powerful  influence  politically  as  well  as  socially, 
and  if  it  determined  that  it  was  for  the  benefit  of  society 
to  buy  the  product  of  the  art  crafts  institution,  here 
would  be  a  sale  for  the  product.  It  would  soon  be  as 
great  an  honor  to  belong  to  such  a  society  as  to  be  a 
32nd  degree  mason.  To  be  expelled  from  such  a  so- 
ciety would  be  a  calamity,  and  therefore  the  executive 
officers  would  be  able  to  exert  a  powerful  pressure  in 
keeping  the  members  in  the  right  path. 

Beatrice.     I   would   not   grudge   the   Executive   Com- 
mittee the  task  of  settling  all  the  domestic 
squabbles,  keeping  the  children  of  Newlyweds  in  order, 
et  cetera. 

Lycidas.  It  would  undoubtedly  be  a  great  task  for 
the  pioneers  to  get  such  an  institution  into 
working  order,  but  gradually  customs  and  methods  of 
procedure  would  be  developed  just  as  in  our  present 
society  which  is  the  product  of  hundreds  of  years. 

In  looking  after  the  widows  and  orphans,  helping  the 
unfortunate,  and  caring  for  the  sick,  there  would  be 
opportunity  to  develop  the  altruistic  side  of  our  nature, 
which  at  the  present  time  hardly  extends  beyond  "me 
and  my  wife,  my  son  John  and  his  wife."  But  the 
Greater  Family  would  carry  its  own  insurance,  look 
after  all  charity  among  its  families,  and  if  this  institution 
were  generally  adopted  there  would  be  no  occasion  for 
public  charity,  which  is  a  poor,  cold  thing  for  the  indi- 
vidual. One-half  of  the  delinquent  boys  and  girls 
brought  before  the  probate  court  come  from  families 
broken  by  the  three  D's — death,  desertion  and  divorce. 
The   permanence   of   the   Greater   Family   is   a   strong 


Celestial    Conferences   on   Love  99 

argument  for  it;  the  three  D's  would  make  little  differ- 
ence to  the  loving  care  of  the  children, — they  would 
be  brought  up  to  have  so  many  aunts  and  uncles  that  they 
would  always  feel  that  they  had  a  home,  rather  than  cast 
adrift  upon  the  world  detached  from  all  bonds  of 
affection. 

Recently  a  prominent  minister  was  arrested  for  main- 
taining a  "soul-mate."  It  is  easy  for  us  to  condemn 
him.  It  is  always  best  to  conform  to  the  law,  and  while 
it  would  have  been  best  for  him  to  have  sought  a  di- 
vorce, he  may  have  thought  it  would  cause  a  less  dis- 
turbance to  continue  his  double  life,  providing  he  was 
not  discovered.  The  minister  attributed  the  cause  of  his 
course  to  the  unsympathetic  character  of  his  wife. 

"She  was  of  no  help  to  me  in  my  ministry.       Since 

meeting  Mrs. I  have  been  a  better  man  and  a  better 

preacher."  This  and  many  similar  cases,  as  well  as 
unnumbered  cases  that  result  in  divorce,  and  still  more 
unnumbered  cases  that  result  in  a  dryrot  of  the  soul, 
are  to  the  social-philosopher  real  soul-tragedies,  and  in- 
stead of  hurling  curses  at  these  people  he  sees  the  deep 
need  of  social  reorganization  in  such  a  way  as  to  meet 
the  laws  of  nature. 

Beatrice.     With  the  liberal  divorce  laws  you  have  ad- 
vocated, I  am  afraid  there  would  be  a  fre- 
quent exchange  of  wives  in  these  families. 

Lycidas.  I  am  inclined  to  think  the  result  would  be 
just  the  opposite.  If  a  marriage  had  to 
exist  on  its  merits  rather  than  by  force  of  law,  the  par- 
ties thereto  would  put  forth  their  greatest  rather  than 
their  least  efforts  to  make  themselves  agreeable, — it 
would  be  a  stimulus  to  character  building.     Such  mental 


100     ■    ;,       Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

intercourse  with  a  woman  who  understands  her  role  as 
inspirer  produces  a  rejuvenescence  of  the  tired  soul,  and 
generates  immense  power. 

Would  it  not  be  nice  to  have  members  of  your  family 
look  after  you  when  sick  or  in  distress?  How  many 
men  and  women  go  to  pieces  with  the  breaking  up  of 
their  family!  It  is  not  pleasant  to  be  an  object  of 
public  charity,  or  dependent  on  charity,  even  in  a  home 
for  the  aged,  to  say  nothing  of  the  poorhouse.  Would 
it  not  be  nice  to  have  a  home  in  every  city  that  you 
might  visit, — a  society  of  free  masons  which  both  men 
and  women  could  enjoy,  with  no  secrets  other  than 
those  enjoined  by  good  taste?  The  present  city  life  is 
cold  and  selfish;  you  seldom  know  your  neighbors;  but 
these  families  and  orders  of  pledged  friends  would  give 
warmth  and  light  to  life,  and  make  the  Brotherhood  of 
Man  an  actual  living  thing. 

A  husband  may  be  a  great  lover  of  music,  for  which 
the  wife  cares  nothing.  A  wife  may  be  passionately 
fond  of  Browning,  but  the  husband  regards  it  as  non- 
sense. He  may  care  for  science  or  philosophy;  she  for 
art  or  literature.  They  may  care  a  great  deal  for  each 
other;  but  under  present  conditions  life  loses  one  of  its 
great  lights  and  glories, — mutual  enjoyment  of  the 
things  we  love.  From  the  more  practical  point  of  view 
there  is  a  great  loss;  there  is  a  lack  of  stimulus  in  intel- 
lectual work  and  in  spiritual  progress,  which  only  a 
sympathetic  and  appreciative  person  of  the  opposite  sex 
can  give.  When  it  was  only  necessary  to  step  into  the 
public  parlor  of  the  Greater  Family  to  find  your  soul- 
mate  and  enjoy  her  society  freely  and  above  board, 
there  would  be  far  less  reason  to  disturb  the  family  life 
of  children  and  rearrange  property.  But  if  the  case  did 
require   this   there   would   be   no    such    disturbance    as 


Celestial   C,onf.'e^re^cirS/ o,n;  I,cpe]  loi 

formerly, — no  occasion  for  kicking  up  a  great  hub-bub 
or  even  getting  angry.  The  home  remains  the  same, 
the  children  still  have  their  parents.  Inherited  notions 
may  feel  that  there  is  something  wrong  about  this  all- 
too-easy  adjustment,  but  if  it  corrects  the  terrible  state 
of  society  which  we  have  indicated  as  daily  dragging 
unnumbered  souls  to  hell,  don't  you  think  it  time  to  re- 
form our  irrational  and  a  priori  notions,  and  try  to 
cast  off  the  shell  of  barbarism  and  get  in  tune  with  the 
infinite  ? 

But  theorize  as  much  as  we  may,  we  cannot  map  out 
plans  of  this  kind  precisely  and  definitively.  All  schemes 
must  be  tried  in  the  laboratory  of  experience.  This 
plan  might  work  finely  for  people  of  a  high  degree  of 
culture;  but  people  where  the  struggle  of  existence  was 
more  acute  might  find  a  different  plan  more  beneficial. 
But  it  is  a  great  step  in  advance  to  place  the  discussion 
of  this  question  on  a  rationalistic  and  naturalistic  basis, 
instead  of  on  the  dogmatic.  Just  as  the  chemist  has 
predicted  new  chemical  elements  in  the  periodic  table, 
the  social  psychologist  predicts  the  need  of  a  new  social 
unit  or  rung  in  the  ladder  of  love  leading  to  the  Divine, 
in  order  to  resolve  the  present  distressing  conflict  be- 
tween Love  and  Duty. 

Beatrice.  I  am  convinced  of  the  general  correctness 
of  your  position,  but  I  am  not  quite  clear 
how  the  intimate  family  life  would  work  among  the  com- 
mon herd,  where  meat  and  drink  and  the  material  things 
of  life  are  the  sole  aim.  It  might  do  for  "transcedentals" 
to  try  some  new  romance,  but  I  am  afraid  that  anything 
more  intimate  than  the  clan  would  develop  the  jealousy 
of  the  plebeian.  I  am  afraid  you  have  in  mind  such 
supermen  as  Dante,  Petrarch,  Mill  and  Thackeray,  who 


102      ^s\ :  (^e^^sihl  ^'dnfirehces^  on   Love 

found  in  their  love  for  other  men's  wives  inspiration 
only  for  the  best  things. 

Lycidas.     The  marriage  of  the  units  of  the  Greater 

Family  is  only  to  be  formal.  In  the  Oneida 
Community,  where  the  marriage  was  real,  I  am  unable 
to  learn  that  they  had  any  such  trouble,  and  they  were 
neither  "transcedentals"  nor  supermen,  unless  their  leader 
Noyes  be  regarded  as  such.  Noyes  was  a  minister,  a 
man  of  sincerity  and  earnestness,  who  sought  to  solve 
the  same  problem  I  am.  He  was  ahead  of  his  age,  just 
as  I  am.  I  seek  to  give  a  little  greater  play  for  the  indi- 
viduality than  he  did.  I  start  on  a  higher  spiritual  plane 
and  concede  less  to  the  flesh  than  he,  but  like  him  I  hold 
that  no  family,  whatever  its  form,  can  hope  to  achieve 
success  without  a  religious  basis.  If  it  has  this  it  will 
not  matter  whether  the  family  is  composed  of  "manuals" 
or  "intellectuals";  there  will  be  every  reason  to  hope 
for  success.  I  am  convinced  that  the  majority  of  cul- 
tured men  and  women  are  unfortunate  in  their  mar- 
riage. What  else  could  you  expect  of  the  choices  of 
an  immature  youth?  But  owing  to  their  education  in 
these  matters,  and  to  the  state  of  public  opinion,  they 
feel  obliged  to  go  through  life  without  that  inspiration 
and  co-operation  that  results  in  work  that  would  greatly 
benefit  the  world.  Men  like  Lavoisier,  Agassiz,  Schlie- 
man,  Huber,  Faraday  and  Curie,  who  have  had  wives 
that  were  real  soul-mates  and  partners  in  their  work, 
are  few.  It  is  quite  possible  that  but  for  the  inspiration 
and  co-operation  of  their  wives  they  would  never  have 
been  heard  of.  On  the  other  hand,  men  like  those  you 
mention,  who  have  the  courage  to  find  inspiration  in  the 
love  of  other  men's  wives,  are  also  few.  Not  many 
care  to  sacrifice  duty  to  love  in  this  way.     But  this  sacri- 


Celestial    Conferences   on    Love  103 

fice  can  be  avoided  if  society  by  mutual  agreement  will 
so  constitute  itself  that  every  man  and  woman  can  find 
the  high  friendship  essential  to  their  work,  and  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  preserve  social  order  and  conform  to 
an  enlightened  public  opinion,  and  which  would  not  ap- 
prove of  a  state  of  society  like  that  of  Greece,  where 
the  hetaerse  were  the  women  of  inspiration. 

The  Orientals  kept  their  women  in  seclusion;  the 
Greeks  did  not  allow  their  women  to  sit  at  their  own 
table  if  male  guests  were  present.  Now  I  ask  if  the 
demand  that  public  opinion  countenance  intimate  friend- 
ships among  groups  of  married  men  and  women  involves 
any  greater  transformation  of  society  than  has  already 
taken  place? 

If  the  world  is  going  to  move  on  to  the  highest  things 
of  the  spirit,  love  must  be  made  active  and  efficient, 
and  youthful  marriages  cannot  be  depended  upon  to 
accomplish  this.  Then  the  notion  that  a  human  being 
cannot  or  ought  not  to  love  more  than  one  is  all  non- 
sense. One  ought  to  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  deep  ; 
love  on  all  sides.  The  notion  that  the  sole  function  of 
love  is  to  create  children  is  a  mistaken  one.  Plato  taught 
the  doctrine  of  creating  spiritual  children,  but  he  failed 
to  realize  its  full  implications  and  practical  possibilities. 
In  these  days  of  scientific  management  and  industrial 
efficiency,  it  is  strange  that  the  possibilities  of  the  social 
organism  as  a  whole  have  been  overlooked.  Science  has 
been  very  backward  in  the  sociological  field.  Religious 
dogma  has  had  science  bluffed,  but  a  Copernicus  is  sure 
to  arise  sooner  or  later. 

In  the  old  days  the  wives  of  great  writers  and  thinkers 
were  wont  to  hold  the  lamp  while  their  husbands,  for 
example,  Cicero,  Pliny  and  Apuleus,  read  or  wrote.  I 
love  to  dwell  upon  this  picture  of  woman  as  the  lamp- 
bearer  to  the  great  orators  and  thinkers;  for  through 


104  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

the  ages,  where  men  and  women  have  been  fortunately 
mated,  and  where  women  have  been  accorded  the  same 
social  plane,  they  have  been  not  only  as  lamps  to  their 
feet,  and  as  lights  on  their  path  in  the  ordinary  affairs 
of  life,  but  have  been  their  guiding  stars  in  the  highest 
fields  of  intellectual  effort. 

This  is  the  beacon  guides  to  deeds  of  worth 
And  urges  me  to  see  the  glorious  goal; 
This  bids  me  leave  behind  the  vulgar  throng. 

Madame  Lavoisier  worked  with  her  husband  in  his 
laboratory,  wrote  out  his  experiments  and  illustrated  his 
treatise  on  Chemistry,  and  edited  his  memoirs.  Mrs. 
Schb'cman  was  her  husband's  right  hand  in  those  glorious 
enterprises  at  Hissarlik  and  Mycenae,  which  secured  for 
both  undying  fame.  Huber,  the  naturalist,  blind  from 
his  17th  year,  worked  through  the  eyes  and  hands  of  his 
wife  for  forty  years.  He  devised  the  experiments;  she 
executed  and  recorded  them.  For  nearly  half  a  century 
Mrs.  Faraday  was  not  only  the  soul-mate  but  a  help- 
mate and  inspirer  of  one  of  the  world's  greatest  physi- 
cists. During  the  long  search  into  the  inner  heart  of 
nature  Pierre  Curie  was  often  so  discouraged  and  de- 
pressed that  had  he  not  been  sustained  by  his  more  san- 
guine wife,  he  would  time  and  again  have  given  up  in 
despair.  But  she  never  lost  faith.  Before  her  deft  hand 
and  fertile  brain  difificulties  disappeared.  You  know  the 
result  of  their  combined  labor,  which  has  placed  them 
in  the  front  rank  of  great  chemists.  Perhaps  of  all 
these  women  it  may  be  said: 

And  whenever  the  way  seemed  long, 

Or  his  heart  began  to  fail, 
She  would  sing  a  more  wonderful  song 

Or  tell  a  more  wonderful  tale. 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  105 

These  men  and  women  were  accidentally  fortunate. 
But  why  should  other  men  and  women,  through  the 
inevitable  mistakes  of  youthful  immaturity,  lack  this 
assistance  and  inspiration?  Why  should  the  world  fail 
to  benefit  by  such  joint  labor?  The  best  results  in  art, 
literature,  science,  philosophy  or  any  other  field  of  en- 
deavor are  secured  when  men  and  women  work  together. 
This  is  particularly  true  of  science,  where  man  supplies 
the  slow,  logical  reasoning  power,  and  the  woman  the 
vivid,  far-reaching  imagination.  Men  generalize  from 
facts;  women  deduce  from  ideas.  Thus  collaborating, 
each  with  his  or  her  predominating  faculties,  combine 
to  make  up  two  complete  individuals  as  already  ex- 
plained, and  they  are  thus  able  to  achieve  results  that 
would  not  otherwise  be  possible. 

Beatrice.     But  if  women  are  to  engage  in  such  labors 
it  would  destroy   the  home  life  that  you 
deem  so  essential  to  the  welfare  of  mankind. 

Lycidas.  I  am  not  acquainted  with  the  home  life  of 
the  women  I  have  mentioned;  but  I  do  not 
think  your  conclusion  a  necessary  one.  Mary  Somer- 
ville  was  a  great  mathematician,  whose  "Mechanism  of 
the  Heavens"  was  something  more  than  a  translation 
of  La  Place's  "Mechanic  Celeste."  She  did  not  let  her 
pursuit  of  science  interfere  with  her  social  and  domestic 
duties  any  more  than  did  Gaetana  Agnesi,  a  great  mathe- 
matician of  an  earlier  period.  Laura  Bassi,  a  European 
celebrity  and  professor  of  physics  in  the  University  of 
Bologna,  was  a  mother  of  twelve  children,  and  was  as 
much  at  home  with  needle  and  spindle  as  with  the  appa- 
ratus of  her  laboratory.  Mme.  Lapaute,  a  distinguished 
astronomical  computer,   never  allowed  her  engrossing 


io6  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

work  to  cause  her  to  neglect  her  household  duties.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  have  never  known  a  suffragette  to  be 
a  good  housekeeper;  but  then,  these  were  nearly  all 
women  of  the  masculine  type.  I  think  the  question  is 
largely  one  of  type ;  the  truly  feminine  woman  will  never 
fail  man. 

The  proper  division  of  labor,  it  would  seem  to  me, 
would  be  for  men  to  educate  themselves  for  special  lines 
of  work,  while  women  should  educate  themselves  along 
artistic  and  musical  lines,  and  seek  to  acquire  a  general 
knowledge  of  sciences  as  an  antidote  for  the  nar- 
rowness and  bigotry  of  the  specialist.  For  it  has  truth- 
fully been  said,  that  nothing  gives  falser  views  of  nature 
as  a  whole ;  nothing  more  unfits  the  mind  for  the  proper 
appreciation  of  higher  truth ;  nothing  more  incapacitates 
one  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  masterpieces  of  literature,  or 
the  sweet  amenities  of  life,  than  the  narrow  occupation 
of  the  specialist  who  sees  nothing  in  the  universe  but 
electrons,  microbes  and  protozoa.  The  wider  culture, 
which  is  really  more  suited  to  the  feminine  mind,  would 
correct  and  enlarge  that  of  the  man,  and  the  growing 
unity  of  the  sciences,  and  the  increasing  difficulty  of 
discovery  makes  this  an  important  factor  in  the  scientific 
method  of  creating  spiritual  children. 

Beatrice.  It  has  been  running  through  my  mind  that 
perhaps  Society  has  been  too  severe  upon 
those  men  and  women  of  genius  who  have  violated  her 
rules  regarding  marriage.  Conscious  of  their  powers 
and  knowing  that  they  must  bask  in  the  sunshine  of  love 
in  order  to  develop  them,  they  have  cut  the  Gordian 
knot  and  grasped  at  love  where  they  could  find  it.  Duty 
in  the  narrower  sense  did  not  bother  them;  but  their 
duty  to  promote  the  eternal  stream  of  progress  was 
imperative. 


Celestial   Conferences  on   Love  I1J7 

Lycidas.  There  appears  to  be  considerable  force  in 
what  you  say,  but  failing  to  feel  the  im- 
perative demands  of  genius,  I  must  number  myself 
among  those  cowardly  souls  who  prefer  that  reform  be 
brought  about  in  an  orderly  manner,  and  would  prefer 
to  sacrifice  any  needs  I  might  have  to  conventional  duty. 
Here  as  elsewhere  Freedom  demands  revolution.  For- 
tunately I  have  near  me  a  store  of  inspiration  far  greater 
than  I  am  able  to  respond  to. 

Beatrice.  Let  me  illustrate  what  I  mean.  Take  the 
case  of  Byron.  It  was  through  his  love  for 
the  Countess  Guiccioli  that  his  poetry  entered  upon  a 
higher  plane.  To  her,  says  Brandes,  the  world  owes  a 
debt  of  gratitude.  It  was  some  years  before  the  old 
Count  developed  jealousy.  Take  the  case  of  Shelley. 
He  married  Harriet  Westbrook  when  she  was  i6,  and 
found  her  impossible.  He  then  ran  away  with  Mary 
Goodwin.  In  his  essay  on  love  he  says:  "If  we  reason 
we  would  be  understood;  if  we  imagine,  we  would  that 
the  airy  children  of  our  brain  were  formed  anew  within 
another's;  if  we  feel,  we  would  that  another's  nerves 
should  vibrate  with  our  own ;  that  lips  of  motionless  ice 
should  not  reply  to  lips  quivering  and  burning  with  the 
heart's  best  blood." 

Lycidas.  Literature  offers  many  similar  illustrations 
of  society's  rules  being  violated  with  seem- 
ing benefit  to  society.  A.  W.  Schlegel  married  Caroline, 
widow  of  Dr.  Bohmer,  and  she  collaborated  with  him  in 
his  translations  of  Shakespeare.  When  later  she  met 
Schelling,  and  it  became  evident  that  she  was  indis- 
pensable to  him,  Schlegel  gave  his  consent  to  break  the 
bond  between  them  with  perfect  good  feeling.     Schlegel 


io8  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

soon  after  took  up  life  with  Sophia  Bernhardi,  who 
divorced  her  husband  for  his  sake.  After  the  death  of 
Caroline,  SchelHng  wrote  of  her :  'This  rare  woman, 
who  to  masculine  strength  of  soul  united  the  tenderest, 
most  womanly,  most  loving  heart.  We  shall  never  see 
her  like  again." 

Dorothea,  the  daughter  of  Moses  Mendelssohn,  mar- 
ried the  banker  Viet  to  please  her  parents.  The  mar- 
riage being  uncongenial  she  obtained  a  divorce  and  took 
up  life  with  Frederick  Schlegel.  She  became  the  orig- 
inal of  his  sensational  novel  Lucinde,  and  acquired  con- 
siderable distinction  as  a  writer  herself. 

The  philosopher  Fichte  proposed  to  his  wife  that  they, 
the  two  Schlegels  and  their  wives,  and  Schelling,  take 
a  large  house,  form  one  family,  have  one  cook  and  so 
forth. 

The  philosopher  Schleiermacher,  writing  regarding  the 
many  degrading  and  unreal  marriages,  and  the  many 
unsuccessful  attempts  at  real  marriage,  which  the  state 
makes  binding,  says  "many  attempts  are  necessary,  and 
that  if  four  or  five  couples  were  taken  together  really 
good  marriage  might  result,  provided  they  were  allowed 
to  exchange." 

Everyone  of  course  knows  the  story  of  how  Wagner 
set  aside  his  first  wife,  although  she  had  been  a  great 
help  to  him  in  his  days  of  struggle  with  poverty.  But 
from  an  artistic  standpoint  she  was  impossible.  He 
married  Cosima  von  Bulow,  daughter  of  Liszt.  To  her 
he  said :  "Nothing  has  significance ;  nothing  has  any  pur- 
pose for  me  save  through  you.  With  you  I  can  achieve 
everything;  without  you  nothing."  Of  course  you  know 
how  after  Wagner's  death  she  became  the  head  and  front 
of  the  Wagnerian  movement. 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  109 

Beatrice.     Should  Society  deny  such  a  supreme  genius 
the   inspiration   of   the   woman   he   needed, 
and  who  felt  a  call  to  help  him? 

Lycidas.  There  have  undoubtedly  been  unnumbered 
souls  who  have  not  been  so  brave  as  these 
we  have  mentioned,  or  as  Society  says,  so  foolish  or 
criminal.  They  have  failed  to  find  their  counterpart; 
they  have  gone  through  life  feeling  like  a  spirit  in 
prison,  failing  the  inspiration  necessary  to  release  that 
spirit.  Amiel,  as  everyone  knows,  was  such  a  spirit; 
the  diary  he  left  makes  this  clear,  as  well  as  gives  proof 
of  his  great  powers.  His  presence  at  our  conference 
is  in  the  hope  of  contributing  to  the  New  Freedom. 

Beatrice.  Shelly,  as  spokesman  for  the  English  of  the 
19th  century,  held  that  the  purpose  of  love 
is  to  promote  happiness.  George  Sand,  speaking  for 
the  French,  holds  that  to  love  is  an  end,  and  that  the 
demands  of  the  heart  should  be  supreme.  This  prob- 
ably explains  why  the  French  birth-rate  is  running  be- 
hind. Schleiermacher,  who  was  a  more  profound 
thinker,  found  the  purpose  of  love  in  the  development 
of  character.  This  is  very  close  to  our  view,  that  all 
the  rays  of  love  should  be  so  focused  as  to  develop  the 
spiritual  life,  and  yet  so  planned  as  to  make  joy  a  neces- 
sary incident.  In  discovering  that  the  law  of  love  is 
the  most  certain  and  positive  path  by  which  souls  may 
mount  to  God,  I  believe  you  have  discovered  a  law  in 
the  spiritual  world  comparable  to  the  Law  of  Gravi- 
tation, for  as  the  one  holds  souls  in  their  orbit  the  other 
holds  planets. 

Lycidas.     As  the  mechanical  engineer  would  like  to  sec 
all  of  the  waste  water  power  used,  I  would 


I  lo  Celestial   Conferences   on    Love 

have  the  individual  so  united  in  and  surrounded  by  love, 
that  the  maximum  of  mental  and  spiritual  power  would 
be  developed.  The  amount  of  energy  wasted  through 
dogma  and  prejudice  is  simply  enormous,  and  the  un- 
happiness  incalculable.  The  individual  is  half  dead  un- 
less stimulated  by  a  loving  society.  The  love  of  one  is 
great,  but  the  love  of  many  is  greater,  more  inspiring. 
I  am  a  strong  individualist,  but  am  forced  to  recognize 
that  there  are  inexorable  social  elements  in  our  nature. 
But  if  it  is  possible,  as  I  believe  that  it  is,  by  some  social 
scheme  to  utilize  this  waste  energy  arising  from  broken 
lives,  broken  or  unhappy  homes,  through  making  love 
active  and  efficient,  the  whole  social  and  spiritual  life 
of  mankind  would  be  transformed.  A  perfectly  happy 
love-life  would  abolish  the  prostitute,  the  libertine,  and 
a  good  many  of  the  suffragettes,  and  we  would  be  on 
the  road  to  abolish  war  and  establish  the  brotherhood 
of  man.  But  the  good  church  people  would  rather  se^ 
the  world  go  to  perdition  than  go  contrary  to  the  rev- 
elations of  the  Bible,  the  revelations  of  God  in  the  Laws 
of  Nature  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  The  great- 
est achievement  in  the  world  is  the  acquirement  of  an 
open  mind.  Someone  has  referred  to  the  infinite  ca- 
pacity of  the  human  mind  to  resist  the  penetration  of 
knowledge.  Society  must  enter  upon  a  more  social  life, 
the  individual  is  not  so  self-sufficient  as  he  has  been 
wont  to  think.  Goethe  was  greatly  dependent  upon  the 
inspiring  society  of  women,  and  at  the  Court  of  Weimar 
established  an  intellectual  society  wherein  Jean  Paul 
says,  "That  a  woman  is  married  signifies  nothing." 
Schiller  and  Jean  Paul  came  under  the  influence  of 
Frau  von  Kalb  at  Weimar,  and  the  latter  was  led  to 
exclaim,  "This  much  is  certain,  the  heart  of  the  world 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  iii 

is  beating  with  a  more  spiritual  and  greater  revolution 
than  the  political,  and  one  more  destructive." 

Beatrice.  I  can  see  quite  plainly  that  the  loss  to  the 
world  would  have  been  incalculable  if  genius 
had  not  broken  the  conventions  and  insisted  upon  having 
the  inspiration  and  help  of  women  whenever  and  wher- 
ever they  found  it  suited  to  their  needs,  and  if  women 
had  not  equally  felt  the  call  to  contribute  to  the  world 
stream  of  progress.  The  individual  and  the  social  life 
should  be  organized  to  that  supreme  end.  But  the  court 
of  Weimar  went  too  far  when  it  insisted  that  the  heart 
had  the  right  to  regard  its  own  code  of  love  as  the  New 
Moral  Code.  This  was  substantially  the  French  view, 
is  a  one-sided  view  of  life,  and  leads  to  evil  results.  The 
heart  will  secure  a  more  enduring  kingdom,  by  holding 
to  Schleiermacher's  view  that  love  should  be  guided  so 
as  to  promote  character,  or  as  you  say  spiritual  develop- 
ment and  evolution. 

Lycidas.  The  limitations  of  the  monogamic  marriage 
relation,  and  the  needs  of  the  mind  and  soul 
for  a  freer  association  between  the  sexes,  has  often  been 
felt  and  various  attempts  have  been  made  to  meet  this 
need.  For  example,  there  was  the  League  of  Virtue 
founded  by  Wm.  von  Humboldt  and  Henrietta  Herz. 
The  members  of  this  League  sought  to  develop  them- 
selves by  writing  long  letters  in  Greek  and  Hebrew 
wherein  they  tore  themselves  up  into  lint,  and  exhibited 
themselves  to  each  other's  contemplation  in  this  unrav- 
eled condition.  They  put  themselves  under  pressure  ano 
squeezed  out  tears  and  heart's  blood  There  was  another 
German  society  which  developed  the  cult  of  Spiritual 
Wives.     When    they    found    a    counterpart    in    another 


112  Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 

man's  wife,  they  agreed  to  be  husband  and  wife  in  the 
next  world  and  friends  in  this.  But  the  best  results 
cannot  be  achieved  without  living  the  community  life  in  a 
legal  manner.  I  therefore  have  proposed  to  meet  the 
defects  of  many  experiments  by  incorporating  a  number 
of  married  couples  into  a  Greater  Family,  and  assume 
definite  social  obligations. 

Beatrice.     I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  would  require 
a  society  of  supermen  and  women  to  live 
in  such  a  family  free  from  jealousy. 

Lycidas.  It  certainly  would  require  men  and  women 
of  superior  culture,  and  those  of  a  jealous 
nature  should  not  join.  Jealousy  is  an  anti-social  emo- 
tion, and  should  be  numbered  among  the  vices;  but  our 
present  marriage  institution  makes  it  one  of  the  chief 
virtues,  and  jealousy  regards  it  as  a  crime  that  a  mar- 
ried partner  should  have  a  friendship  with  a  person  of 
the  opposite  sex  beyond  the  chit-chat  of  a  public  function. 
Society  under  the  influence  of  religious  dogma  has 
allowed  the  individual  to  cultivate  this  selfish  side  of  his 
and  her  nature  greatly  to  its  detriment.  But  jealousy 
is  not  an  essential  element  of  human  nature.  Consider 
the  friendship  between  the  distinguished  German  writer 
Borne  and  the  widow  Jeanette  Wohl,  which  continued 
for  seventeen  years  in  the  tenderest  manner.  She  was 
his  secretary  and  inspiring  genius.  Having  been  unfor- 
tunate in  her  first  marriage,  she  refused  to  marry  him 
lest  it  should  break  the  charm  of  their  happy  relations. 
He  writes  to  her,  "Though  I  did  not  confess  it  to  you, 
I  always  dreaded  that  marriage  might  drag  down  ouv 
beautiful  friendship  to  the  level  of  every-day  sordid 
reality.     But   I   thought,   what    I   still   think,   that   you 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love  113 

would  gain  something  by  it,  and  this  would  have  indi- 
rectly increased  my  happiness.  So  there  is  nothing  to 
prevent  you  from  marrying  another  man;  you  and  I 
would  lose  nothing  by  it."  It  was  not  long  after  that 
she  put  to  proof  this  last  assertion.  A  man  by  the  name 
of  Strauss  proposed  to  her,  and  she  wrote  in  reply,  "The 
Doctor  has  no  one  in  the  world  but  me;  I  am  to  him 
friend,  sister,  all  that  these  words  convey  of  kindliness, 
friendliness,  sympathy.  Can  you  grudge  this  to  him, 
to  whom  Hfe  has  given  nothing  else,  and  who  has  recon- 
ciled himself  to  his  fate — is  even  contented  with  it?  I 
can  think  of  no  better  possibility  than  that  the  Doctor 
should  come  to  live  with  us  when,  where,  and  for  as 
long  as  he  chooses;  for  altogether  if  he  wishes.  I  can't 
say  you,  my  heart  is  too  full ;  canst  thou  think  any- 
thing else  possible?  If  so,  then  all  is  different  from 
what  I  thought.  I ! — we !  dream  of  deserting  a  man 
like  the  Doctor — why  he  would  be  a  ruined,  a  lost  man ! 
I  would  rather  give  up  everything,  rather  die,  than  have 
that  upon  my  conscience,"  etc.,  etc.  Strauss  became  a 
friend  of  Borne;  all  three  lived  together  until  the  death 
of  Borne,  and  Strauss  defended  the  honor  of  Borne  in 
a  duel  with  Heine. 

Charlotte  Steiglitz  gives  a  remarkable  example  of  free- 
dom from  jealousy  and  a  desire  to  contribute  to  world 
progress.  She  made  the  mistake  of  taking  an  effeminate 
Leipzig  student  for  the  ideal  man  of  her  day  dreams, — 
an  inferior  poet  for  a  great  artist.  She  uses  all  her  re- 
sources to  inspire  him,  and  failing  in  this  and  thinking 
it  is  a  lack  in  herself  rather  than  in  him  she  writes  to 
him,  "I  wish,  Heinrich,  you  would  have  more  intercourse, 
either  personal  or  by  correspondence,  with  clever, 
womenly  women.  They  are  the  poet's  true  public.  It 
would  be  of  interest  to  you  to  learn,  frankly  and  truth- 


114  Celestial   Conferences   on    Love 

fully,  what  they  think  of  you  and  your  work.  Such 
intercourse  would  be  both  instructive  and  refreshing,  a 
useful  and  agreeable  diversion  to  you."  This  was  un- 
doubtedly the  correct  program,  but  this  or  nothing  else 
was  capable  of  making  him  a  great  poet.  Caroline  then 
conceived  the  idea  that  he  required  a  great  sorrow  to 
effect  his  spiritual  regeneration.  His  apathy  increasing, 
she  wrote  him  a  letter  hoping  that  the  sorrow  that  was 
to  come  to  him  would  make  him  calm,  strong  and  great. 
Then  she  lay  down  on  the  bed  and  with  a  firm  hand 
plunged  the  dagger  of  their  wedding  tour  into  her  heart. 
Beatrice.  The  example  of  this  woman,  who  gave  up 
life  in  the  hope  of  advancing  the  Spiritual 
Kingdom,  certainly  puts  to  shame  all  those  women  who 
refuse  to  cast  their  jealousy  aside. 

"The  woman's  cause  is  man's;  they  rise  or  sink 
Together,  dwarfed  or  godlike,  bond  or  free. 


For  woman  is  not  undeveloped  man 

But  diverse;  could  we  make  her  as  the  man, 

Sweet  love  were  slain;  his  dearest  bond  is  this, 

Not  like  to  like,  but  like  in  difference. 

Yet  in  the  long  years  liker  must  they  grow; 

The  man  be  more  of  woman,  she  of  man; 

He  gain  in  sweetness  and  in  moral  height, 

Nor  lose  the  wrestling  thews  that  throw  the  world; 

She  mental  breadth,  nor  fail  in  childward  care, 

Nor  lose  the  childlike  in  the  larger  mind; 

Till  at  last  she  set  herself  to  man. 

Like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words; 

And  as  these  twain  upon  the  skirts  of  time, 

Sit  side  by  side,  full  summed  in  all  their  powers, 

Dispensing  harvest,  sowing  the  to-be, 


Celestial   Conferences   on   Love 


"5 


Self-reverent  each,  and  reverencing  each, 
Distinct  in  individualities, 
But  like  each  other  even  as  those  who  love, 
Then  comes  the  statelier  Eden  back  to  men; 
Then  springs  the  crowning  race  of  human-kind. 
May  these  things  be." 

FINIS. 


CELESTIAL  CONFERENCES  ON  LOVE 


VC^^ 


Conference  One — The  Ecstasy  of  Love 
"  Two — The  Practice  of  Love 

**  Three — The  Mystery  of  Love 

•*  Four — The  Philosophy  of  Love 

**  Five — The  Religion  of  Love 

Six—The  Conflict  of  Love  and  Duty 
••  Seven — Love  and  Immortality 


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